Jon King’s primary focus is on white collar crime, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and related issues involving corporate compliance and internal investigations. Jon co-chairs DLA Piper’s White Collar, Corporate Crime and Investigations Practice.

Jon has directed and conducted numerous cross-border investigations of FCPA and other anti-corruption issues and compliance matters in locations all across the globe. Jon also assists his clients with a wide variety of other FCPA and other anti-corruption related issues, including the development of effective compliance programs, due diligence issues and general FCPA advice.

Besides his work with clients on FCPA and global anti-corruption issues, Jon has conducted numerous corporate internal investigations on behalf of corporations and other entities, as well as corporate boards of directors / audit committees. Jon serves as counsel to individuals and businesses on numerous white collar matters involving domestic public corruption, corporate fraud and abuse, securities fraud, including insider trading and accounting irregularities, criminal tax and other regulatory and compliance matters, including trade controls, insurance and financial services-related issues. Jon regularly represents both individuals and businesses in connection with grand jury investigations conducted by the US Department of Justice, investigations and enforcement actions brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and investigations and prosecutions brought by Attorneys General Offices in various states and by other state and federal agencies.

Besides his white collar work, Jon also handles a variety of complex commercial litigation cases on behalf of individuals and corporations. Jon recently obtained the dismissal of a lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Michigan against a Qatari company, its shareholders and directors and other defendants, on the basis of a lack of personal jurisdiction. Jon subsequently argued the case before the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which affirmed the dismissal.

Jon also represents clients in False Claims Act (FCA) and related investigations and matters and his experience includes obtaining the dismissal of an FCA matter pending in US District Court, as well as the successful negotiation of another such matter to a non-FCA resolution.

Cliff Histed represents companies and individuals operating in highly-regulated industries, including in the areas of financial markets and health care, during both criminal and regulatory proceedings, and in representing clients in litigation and at trial.

Cliff is a former supervisory federal prosecutor, supervisory enforcement lawyer with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and special agent with a federal Inspector General’s Office. He has more than 30 years’ experience investigating, prosecuting, and defending business frauds and criminal offenses in regulated industries, including the securities markets, the agricultural and financial futures markets, and health care. He has supervised more than a dozen assistant U.S. attorneys in their investigation and trial of criminal fraud cases, and has tried 27 jury and nonjury cases, both criminal and civil, in federal and state courts. He has briefed eleven matters before the Second and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, and argued eight of those appeals. He is a member of the K&L Gates Trial Academy and is a member of its steering committee.

Cliff has conducted or supervised hundreds of investigations and prosecutions, including those involving allegations of bribery, embezzlement and internal fraud, trade secret theft, obstruction of justice, and trading offenses such as insider trading, price manipulation in agricultural and energy futures markets, wash sales, and abusive forms of high-frequency trading, including the case U.S. v. Michael Coscia, the first case to charge the disruptive trading practice known as “spoofing” as a crime. Many of these investigations involved parallel proceedings brought by federal regulatory agencies, futures exchanges, bankruptcy trustees, or private litigants.

Cliff speaks and writes frequently on the topic of futures and securities trading, and on regulation of cryptocurrencies. Notable publications that have quoted him include Bloomberg News, Chicago Lawyer, Crain’s Chicago Business, Law360, Institutional Investor, Forbes, Fortune, New York Times, and Reuters.

Cliff has a very active pro bono practice, and has provided legal services to the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission and Clemency Project 2014. He is a member of the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois which provides representation to indigent clients charged with federal criminal offenses.

Kruti Trivedi holds the position of Assistant General Counsel at JPMorgan Chase & Co., where she focuses on government investigations and regulatory enforcement for one of the world’s largest financial institutions. Prior to joining JPMorgan, Ms. Trivedi served as a federal prosecutor based in Chicago, where she tried ten jury trials, argued multiple appeals, and was recognized by the FBI for her work prosecuting investment fraud.  Before she joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ms. Trivedi clerked for the Honorable David H. Coar in the Northern District of Illinois.  Ms. Trivedi holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and an undergraduate degree in public policy and international affairs from Princeton University.

In terms of civic engagement, Ms. Trivedi was selected for Chicago Council of Global Affairs’ Emerging Leaders Class of 2017 and has since 2019 served on the program’s selection committee.  She is President of the Harvard Law Society of Illinois, and in 2020 was elected to the executive committee of the Harvard Law School Association, a national organization of Harvard Law alumni.  She also volunteers as an alumni interviewer for Princeton University.  Ms. Trivedi previously taught international law for the University of Chicago’s Program in International Political Economy and has spent over a dozen years as a docent at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Sergio Acosta is Co-Chair of Akerman’s White Collar Crime and Government Investigations Practice. A former federal prosecutor and Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers with over 70 jury trials to his credit, he has extensive experience defending companies and individuals in criminal and regulatory proceedings, conducting internal investigations, and counseling clients on compliance programs and related issues.

Sergio represents companies and individuals in regulatory, civil, and criminal proceedings initiated by government agencies for alleged wrongdoing, and proactively counsels clients on enforcement and other litigation matters, including allegations of bribery, alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Anti-Kickback Statute; financial and regulatory fraud (e.g., False Claims Act, securities, tax, bankruptcy, and federal programs fraud); violations of export / import laws and regulations; and violations of internal corporate policy. He has conducted numerous internal investigations for various state and local governmental entities.

A fluent Spanish speaker, Sergio has served as lead counsel in corporate internal investigations and represented individual corporate executives in Latin America. He also counsels and represents companies involved in the gaming industry in Illinois and elsewhere.

Sergio served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for approximately eighteen years, including seven years as Chief of the General Crimes Section for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. During his tenure as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Sergio supervised and handled hundreds of investigations and prosecutions of complex federal criminal cases involving bank fraud, health care fraud, tax fraud, racketeering, violent crime, embezzlement, weapons violations, political corruption, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and terrorism. He also served as the Office’s Criminal Civil Rights Coordinator, leading the team of prosecutors and FBI agents that indicted notorious former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.

From 1999-2001, Sergio served as Administrator of the Illinois Gaming Board, the agency responsible for regulating all aspects of the Illinois casino gambling industry. Sergio started his career as an Assistant State Attorney in Miami – Dade County, Florida, where he held several supervisory positions under then-State’s Attorney Janet Reno.