David A. Last

David A. Last’s practice focuses on government and internal investigations, including defending companies and individuals in a wide range of high-stakes domestic and international enforcement actions and trials with a particular focus on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) matters.

David brings extensive experience in leading investigations related to white collar criminal offenses, with a particular focus on FCPA matters. Prior to joining Cleary, David served as the Chief of the FCPA Unit at the Department of Justice, where he led a specialized group of prosecutors in the DOJ’s Fraud Section, whose job is to identify, investigate, and prosecute violations of the FCPA and other corruption-related offenses. As Chief of the unit, he oversaw all FCPA-related investigations, prosecutions, corporate resolutions, trials, and corporate compliance monitorships in the United States. Under his leadership, the FCPA Unit investigated over 200 matters involving the FCPA, money laundering, wire fraud, and other corruption-related offenses. These matters encompassed every significant industry sector and geographic region. David also played a key role in shaping major corporate criminal enforcement policies, including those on corporate self-disclosure and compliance, including as a member of the Deputy Attorney General’s Corporate Crime Advisory Group (CCAG). He also reviewed and evaluated the compliance programs of numerous companies under investigation by the DOJ. David also represented the DOJ as a delegate to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Working Group on Bribery on many occasions, and collaborated extensively with various U.S. and international law enforcement authorities, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office, Brazil’s Ministério Público Federal and Office of the Comptroller General, Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General, and France’s Parquet National Financier, among others.

Prior to his role as Chief of the FCPA Unit, David served as the Principal Assistant Chief and prior to that as an Assistant Chief and a Trial Attorney, contributing to multiple record-breaking years for corporate penalties – over $2.2 billion in DOJ penalties and over $7.6 billion in coordinated global resolutions. As a prosecutor and supervisor in the FCPA Unit, David led and oversaw many of the DOJ’s most high-profile and significant matters, including one of the largest coordinated FCPA resolutions in history.

In addition to his leadership roles at DOJ, David is also a seasoned trial lawyer, having tried and supervised numerous cases during his 17 years as a federal prosecutor. For over a decade, David served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., where he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of white-collar criminal cases, including financial fraud, public corruption, wire fraud, money laundering, bank fraud, and Travel Act violations, among other criminal cases. During his time at DOJ, David personally tried more than forty cases to verdict and supervised some of the most complex white-collar and foreign bribery related trials in the country.

Since joining Cleary, David has advised clients with respect to anti-bribery and corruption investigations and other cross-border issues. David also represents public and private companies, as well as individual executives, in matters before the DOJ and the SEC. He also frequently advises on the development of compliance and integrity programs and counsels clients in advance of strategic transactions.

David joined the firm as a partner in 2023.