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Professionals 66 results
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Practice Area
International trade is essential for the growth and development of global economies and businesses. As international trade has expanded and developed, so too have the myriad rules and regulations that govern it. The global compliance environment is becoming more complex by the day and can be difficult to navigate without the assistance of experienced counsel. Failure to comply with international trade rules and regulations—even if done so unwittingly—can lead to civil and criminal penalties, monitorships, consent agreements, debarment, reputational damage, substantial administrative burden, legal expense, and unsatisfied business objectives. Increasingly, there also is exposure for individual officers/directors, which can include monetary penalties and, potentially, jail time.
Practice Area
White Collar & Government Investigations
Ranked Tier 1 Nationally for “Criminal Defense: White Collar” by Best Law Firms®2025, and recognized for “Corporate Crime & Investigations: Highly Regarded – Nationwide” by Chambers USA in 2025, Winston’s White Collar & Government Investigations Practice assists individuals, companies, and organizations with government investigations and enforcement matters; related criminal and civil litigation; trials; appeals; congressional oversight; internal investigations; and compliance counseling and program development and enhancement. We are comprised of 80+ litigators, with more than a dozen former prosecutors from the SEC, Main Justice, and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices nationwide, including four former U.S. Attorneys, Regional Supervisors, and a former Assistant Director, Enforcement Division, SEC. We are known for our zealous advocacy, our unyielding commitment to our clients, and for protecting and defending clients’ interests with legal acumen that’s second to none.
Industry
Winston’s financial crimes compliance lawyers have been providing regulatory compliance counseling and enforcement services related to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AML), and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) policy for decades. We also have experience with international AML matters, including in the EU and with respect to Financial Actions Task Force (FATF) recommendations.
Experience 6 results
Experience
|April 23, 2025
Voyager Acquisition Corp. and VERAXA Biotech Announce Business Combination
Winston & Strawn represented Voyager Acquisition Corp. in its announced business combination agreement with VERAXA Biotech AG, a biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation antibody-based cancer therapies. The combination will result in VERAXA becoming a publicly traded company on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “VERX”, with a pre-money equity valuation of $1.3 billion and up to $253 million in cash held in trust by Voyager. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.
Experience
|February 10, 2025
US$600 million Total Play Telecomunicaciones S.A.P.I. de C.V. Offer to Exchange Senior Notes
Winston & Strawn represented Total Play Telecomunicaciones, S.A.P.I. de C.V. (“Total Play”), a leading telecommunications company in Mexico, in connection with the offer to exchange (a) up to US$600M of its outstanding 6.375% Senior Notes due 2028 (the “Existing Notes”) for newly issued 11.125% Senior Secured Notes due 2032 (the “New Notes”) and (b) a cash payment by each tendering holder of U.S.$450 for each U.S.$1,000 in Existing Notes tendered by such holder (the “New Money Deposits”) for newly issued New Notes. Total Play also solicited holders for their consent to certain proposed amendments to the Existing Notes. The issuance of the New Notes was issued pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act and outside the United States pursuant to Regulation S under the Securities Act.
Experience
|March 8, 2023
GIO World Health Business Combination with Apeiron Capital Investment Corp.
Winston & Strawn is representing GIO World Health, a recently formed company focused on stem cell research and development, in its announced business combination with Apeiron Capital Investment Corp. (OTC: APNC), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company. Upon closing, GIO World Health will become public in order to bring its proprietary stem cell treatments to market and other stem cell-based products for global consumption. The parties intend that at the closing of the proposed transaction, Apeiron Capital common stock will be listed on either the NYSE or NASDAQ, and Apeiron Capital will be renamed "GIO World Health Holdings, Inc." Under the business combination agreement (BCA), Apeiron Capital will acquire shares of GIO World Health from its existing shareholders in exchange for newly issued common shares of Apeiron Capital. GIO shareholders holding approximately 98.7% of its outstanding shares have signed on to sell their shares to Apeiron Capital under the BCA, and the parties intend to have the remaining GIO shareholders participate in the transaction prior to the closing. Under the terms of the BCA, GIO World Health is valued at a pre-money enterprise value of US$250M.
Insights & News 481 results
Client Alert
|October 3, 2025
|4 Min Read
Debanking Developments: New Regulatory Scrutiny Coming After Trump Executive Order
In this alert, Winston’s Financial Services Industry Group examines the latest developments in regulatory scrutiny of “debanking,” with a particular focus on recent actions following a Trump administration executive order.
In the Media
|October 2, 2025
|1 Min Read
Winston & Strawn partner Carl Fornaris was quoted in ThinkAdvisor discussing the U.S. Treasury Department’s proposal to delay the implementation of an anti-money laundering rule for investment advisors until January 1, 2028. The proposed extension is meant to afford it “an opportunity to reduce any unnecessary or duplicative regulatory burden and ensure the IA AML Rule strikes an appropriate balance between cost and benefit.”
Client Alert
|September 23, 2025
|2 Min Read
FinCEN Issues Proposed Rule to Delay the Investment Adviser AML Rule by Two Years
Last month, we published an alert about the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) order providing exemptive relief for covered investment advisers from certain anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism program and other Bank Secrecy Act-related reporting, recordkeeping and information-sharing obligations (IA AML Rule) until January 1, 2028. The IA AML Rule, published by FinCEN as a final rule on September 4, 2024, is currently set to become effective on January 1, 2026.
On September 22, 2025, FinCEN published a notice of proposed rulemaking to amend the IA AML Rule to delay its effective date by two years, from January 1, 2026 to January 1, 2028.
Other Results 24 results
Site Content
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) refers to policies and practices that prevent, detect, and report financial crimes. The principal U.S. federal law on money laundering is the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), also known as the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970. The BSA generally mandates financial institutions to assist in governmental investigations by keeping records of cash purchases or negotiable instruments, filing reports of cash transactions exceeding a set daily aggregate amount, and reporting suspicious activity that may hint at money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities.
Site Content
Loot boxes are randomized collections or boxes of virtual items, often made available for purchase with money. A player who purchases a loot box in a game does not know its contents until he or she opens the box, causing advocacy groups and government actors to liken loot boxes to games of chance, and to call for their regulation under gambling laws.
Site Content
Wash trading occurs when a buyer and seller collude to mislead the market and artificially inflate the value of a security without incurring any actual risk or changing the traders’ positions. The buyer and seller essentially send the security and cash back and forth, but only the initial sale is publicly reported, with the second exchange where the security and money are returned to their original owners happening surreptitiously. Wash trading was first banned by the federal government by the Commodity Exchange Act in 1936, but it has come under recent scrutiny again following the advent of high-frequency trading.