Elizabeth Prewitt is an antitrust partner and trial litigator in Hughes Hubbard’s New York office. Her practice focuses on international cartel and criminal matters, government and internal investigations, and complex litigation.
For 16 years Ms. Prewitt was an investigator and trial lawyer for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). She served as Assistant Chief of the Antitrust Division’s New York office from 2012-2014 where she managed a team of approximately 25 prosecutors investigating and litigating domestic and international criminal antitrust and fraud cases, as well as civil antitrust matters, with a focus on financial markets.
During her tenure at the DOJ Ms. Prewitt led several complex, large-scale investigations and secured convictions, fines, and restitution recoveries on charges including antitrust, bribery, major fraud, tax, and international money laundering. She was the Antitrust Division’s lead prosecutor investigating alleged rigging of LIBOR and other benchmark interest rates and secured some of the Division’s largest criminal penalties from several global financial institutions. Ms. Prewitt also led the DOJ’s antitrust investigation into alleged manipulation of certain foreign currency exchange rates (Forex) from its inception until her appointment as a Visiting International Enforcer to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition in Brussels in March 2014. As both a lead prosecutor and Assistant Chief, she coordinated cross-border criminal investigations with parallel investigations by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Reserve, as well as those conducted by states’ attorneys general and numerous overseas regulators and enforcers such as the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Serious Fraud Office (SFO), and the European Commission. In connection with several matters, she worked in close collaboration with the DOJ’s Criminal, Civil, and Tax Divisions. In addition, Ms. Prewitt has substantial litigation experience, including serving as first-chair trial counsel for the prosecution of bribery, fraud and other offenses in connection with contracts for the cleanup of federal Superfund sites in 2013, resulting in the longest prison sentence ever imposed in an antitrust-related case.
Ms. Prewitt has received a number of awards recognizing her work. She was twice the recipient of an Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service (the DOJ’s second-highest award), and twice the recipient of the Assistant Attorney General’s Award.
She has served as an instructor on cartel enforcement and investigative techniques at the DOJ and for competition authorities in Europe and Asia, and is frequently an invited speaker on topics to include cross-border investigations, antitrust enforcement in the financial services industry and markets, anti-corruption, and compliance.
