Veena Viswanatha

Veena Viswanatha, Partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Buckley LLP, represents corporate and individual clients in complex civil litigation and government investigations. She has represented clients in a wide variety of high-stakes litigation and investigations, including matters concerning alleged securities and financial fraud and breaches of fiduciary duty.

Ms. Viswanatha is particularly skilled in turning complicated facts into simple, compelling, and persuasive stories, in both dispositive motions and negotiations with the government alike. Some of her greatest successes were in cases that were resolved quickly or that concluded with the government choosing not to bring any charges at all.

Noteworthy work includes:

• Represents the chairman and president of a D.C. corporation in major civil litigation concerning control of the corporation and multi-billion dollar worldwide assets. The corporation is part of the Unification Church religion, and there is a three-way schism among members of the founder’s immediate family over the spiritual and financial control of the movement. Thus, the case raises important constitutional questions about court resolution of intrareligious disputes. The case also involves breach of trust and breach of fiduciary duty claims related to decades-old conduct in multiple countries. This extraordinarily complex litigation has been ongoing since 2010 in both the trial and appellate courts, and following a four-week partial trial in D.C. Superior Court at the end of 2019, the case is now being appealed again to the D.C. Court of Appeals.
   
• Represents Justin W. Keener d/b/a JMJ Financial and three current employees in ongoing enforcement litigation in the Southern District of Florida brought by the SEC concerning allegations that Mr. Keener and JMJ Financial operated as an unregistered dealer in violation of Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act. This litigation is part of the SEC’s recent focus on dealer registration requirements, and the types of firms that qualify as dealers.
   
• Represented Universal Entertainment Corp., a large Japanese gaming manufacturer, and its subsidiary, Aruze USA, Inc., in FCPA-related litigation brought by Wynn Resorts Ltd., as well as in related parallel matters. The case involved one of the first examples of a private party using allegations of FCPA violations as an affirmative weapon to gain an upper hand in an unrelated contract dispute. After six years of litigation – during which the parties produced millions of documents, argued more than a dozen appeals and scores of motions, and took nearly 100 depositions – Wynn Resorts agreed to pay $2.6 billion to our clients just a month before trial.
   
• Represented the Navajo Nation in a landmark lawsuit against the U.S. government. The Nation alleged that the U.S. had breached its fiduciary duties to the tribe by failing to properly manage, invest, and account for funds and resources the U.S. held in trust for the tribe. After many years of litigation involving facts, circumstances, and documents stretching back six decades, the firm secured a $554 million settlement on behalf of the tribe. It is the largest settlement obtained against the U.S. in any action by a single Native American tribe.

Prior to joining Buckley, Ms. Viswanatha was an Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.

Ms. Viswanatha received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2009 (cum laude). During law school, she interned for the Honorable Jerome Simandle in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. She also served as an Articles Editor for the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and as an Arthur Littleton and H. Clayton Louderback Legal Writing Instructor. Ms. Viswanatha received her B.A. from Rutgers University in 2003 (magna cum laude).