Bruce E Yannett

Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Bruce Yannett is chair of the white-collar and regulatory defence practice at Debevoise & Plimpton and also served as deputy presiding partner of the firm from July 2011 until June 2022. His practice focuses on white-collar criminal defence, regulatory enforcement and internal investigations. He represents a broad range of companies, financial institutions and their executives in matters involving securities fraud, accounting fraud, foreign bribery, cybersecurity, insider trading and money laundering. He has extensive experience in representing corporations and individuals outside the United States in responding to inquiries and investigations.

Chambers Global 2022 and Chambers USA 2022 recognise Mr Yannett as a Band 1 practitioner for FCPA matters. He is also noted in Chambers USA 2022 as a Band 1 practitioner for white-collar criminal defence and a leading lawyer for regulatory enforcement, in Chambers Global 2021 for corporate crime and investigations in Latin America, and in The Legal 500 Latin America 2022 for compliance and investigations in Latin America. Clients say ‘he has tremendous credibility with boards and government agencies’, he is ‘one of the best-known and most able advisers for potential criminal issues with the government’ and ‘he has extremely deep knowledge, is very smart and strategic, and is a pleasure to work with’. They praise his work as ‘excellent’ and describe him as a ‘very strong communicator and litigator’ and a ‘leading light in the field’, noting that ‘he has real gravitas about him’, giving him the ‘immediate respect of everybody in the room’. In a similar vein, he is recognised in The Legal 500 US 2022, where he is included in the ‘Hall of Fame’ and is called a ‘superstar’; Lawdragon recognises him as one of the 500 leading lawyers in America; and Benchmark Litigation names him a ‘Litigation Star’.

He is a member of the American Law Institute. Mr Yannett is on the board of advisers for the New York University programme on corporate compliance and enforcement. Early in his career, Mr Yannett served in the Office of Independent Counsel: Iran/Contra and as an Assistant United States Attorney.