Seetha Ramachandran

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Partner

New York +1.212.969.3455

Seetha Ramachandran is a partner in the Litigation Department, and a member of the White Collar and Asset Management Litigation practices.

Seetha is a seasoned trial and appellate lawyer with extensive experience in civil and criminal forfeiture matters. Her practice includes white collar and regulatory enforcement defense, internal investigations and compliance counseling. A leading expert in anti-money laundering (AML), Bank Secrecy Act, economic sanctions and asset forfeiture matters, Seetha has deep experience representing institutions and individuals in financial penalty phase of criminal and regulatory matters. She is often retained to litigate forfeiture and restitution claims on behalf of victims and third parties in criminal cases as well as handling these issues for individual defendants. Her practice also includes general commercial litigation and trials involving antitrust, civil frauds and First Amendment/defamation claims.

Seetha served as a federal prosecutor for nearly 10 years, first as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York and later as the first chief of the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering & Bank Integrity Unit, where she led DOJ’s first wave of anti-money laundering cases against global financial institutions and oversaw all of the Criminal Division’s AML cases. During her tenure, she worked with executive leadership across agencies, including the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, state and federal banking regulators, including FinCEN, the OCC and the New York State Department of Financial Services. Her strategic approach to developing and prosecuting criminal cases under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) established the framework for AML enforcement that regulators and prosecutors follow today.

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Seetha served in the Complex Frauds, Major Crimes and Asset Forfeiture units where she investigated and prosecuted white-collar cases involving a wide range of financial crimes, including bank fraud, mail and wire fraud, tax fraud, money laundering, stolen art and cultural property as well as both civil and criminal forfeiture matters.

Seetha has been recognized by Chambers USA and The Legal500 US, with clients noting that she “is the person to see for complex financial crimes and questions. Her depth of knowledge is unparalleled. Her understanding of DOJ is incredible, and her ability to creatively solve problems on the fly is amazing.” In 2023, Seetha was shortlisted for “White Collar Crime Lawyer of the Year” by Euromoney’s Women in Business Law awards. She was also named among Global Investigations Review (GIR)’s Women in Investigations 2021 list.

She is a frequent speaker and author on topics including enforcement trends in the financial services industry, crypto, OFAC sanctions, effective AML programs and asset forfeiture. She has served on the Steering Committee of the Cambridge Forum on Risk Regulation and Enforcement in FinTech for three years.

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