Matthew G. Nielsen

Matthew Nielsen represents companies, boards, executives, and securities firms and professionals in internal and government investigations and litigation involving civil and criminal misconduct. Matthew has deep experience in handling matters involving public company accounting and disclosure issues, insider trading, securities fraud, US export controls and sanctions, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), whistleblower complaints and healthcare fraud. In addition, Matthew regularly represents clients before and in litigation with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DOJ), Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA), Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Department of the Treasury and other federal and state agencies.

Drawing on more than two decades of defending clients in government investigations and litigation, Matthew assists management and directors in running internal investigations; addressing sensitive governance issues; and establishing and evaluating compliance programs to help deter and detect problems early. His experience includes leading the court-appointed compliance monitor team for a large, international technology company, where he evaluated, for the court and government, the company’s obligations to build a world-class compliance program and investigated potential violations of its plea agreement.

When issues cannot be avoided or resolved, Matthew brings his substantial trial experience to defend clients in state and federal courts, administrative proceedings and arbitrations. Among his successes for clients, he has tried and won cases against the SEC; successfully resolved a multi-billion dollar securities class action; won an injunction and appeal for a public-company in a proxy fight and obtained an injunction and recovered damages for a client for theft of trade secrets.

Matthew is also the co-host of the Bracewell Sidebar, a podcast devoted to government enforcement and investigations with a focus on white-collar criminal defense.