John J Kenney |

Bio

A partner in the firm of Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney since 2007, John Kenney is a former senior litigation partner at Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett, New York (1980-2006) and formerly the Executive Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1971-1980). In 1980, then attorney general Benjamin R Civiletti presented to him the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement. He has been a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers since 1994.

In private practice at Simpson Thatcher, and subsequently at his current firm, John has had extensive litigation experience in complex civil litigation; white-collar criminal defence; US congressional investigations; Foreign Corrupt Practice Act and Office of Foreign Assets Control investigations; class actions and environmental investigations and prosecutions. He has argued appeals in state and federal courts of appeal throughout the United States, and he has tried civil and criminal cases, jury and non-jury, in state and federal courts. In 2010, he tried a 10-week criminal trial before Federal Judge Deborah Batts in Manhattan involving charges of violating section 10(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act. In 2014, he tried a three-week non-jury case before Federal Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne, Wyoming, involving a US$100 million claim arising from the explosion of the Sinclair Refinery. Judge Johnson decided in the defendants' favour in 2019. And, more recently, he was trial counsel to a co-defendant in US v Skelos in June and July of 2018. This was a public corruption case against the former majority leader of the New York State Senate and his son.

As a federal prosecutor, he tried bank fraud and antitrust securities cases, as well as a felony murder case. The murder occurred during the attempted heist of a US Mail truck leaving the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. The bank fraud case included the investigation and prosecution of the senior management of the Franklin National Bank and the Italian financier Michele Sindona. At the time, the collapse of the Franklin National was the largest in US history (1974-1980).

At the American College of Trial Lawyers, he was the chair of the committee on the federal rules of evidence. He is a former president of the New York County Lawyers Association of the Federal Bar Council. He is a member of the Bar Association of the City of New York, and former chair of the committee on criminal law. Among his broader interests, he is the former chair of the Poetry Foundation (Chicago); a trustee of Bennington College in Vermont; and chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.

John J Kenney

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