Bart Friedman is chairman of Cahill's Business Development Committee.
Bart advises leading financial institutions and global corporations, boards of directors, audit committees and officers and directors of publicly-held companies (in the US and elsewhere) in significant corporate and securities matters, with particular emphasis on mergers and acquisitions and corporate compliance and enforcement challenges.
Bart has over thirty years of experience advising clients in financings and securities transactions and in matters affecting corporate policy and strategy such as directors’ duties and responsibilities and other aspects of corporate governance, including those arising under Sarbanes-Oxley. He is widely regarded for his know-how in connection with accounting disputes and restatements, conflicts of interest, fiduciary responsibilities, liabilities, public disclosures, audits, investigations and enforcement actions. He has led and/or served as monitor in numerous international investigations involving complex compliance, ethics and financial control procedural allegations and scenarios. Bart is profiled as one of America's leading lawyers by Lawdragon; is named among the nation's prominent practitioners by The Legal 500; and has been ranked among the top corporate governance lawyers in New York by Chambers USA.
Bart has represented, or is currently representing, the following Companies, members of Management, or the independent members of the Boards of Abercrombie & Fitch, Bausch & Lomb, Beazer Homes, Cablevision, Centex, Chicago Board Options Exchange, Coca-Cola Enterprises, D.E. Shaw, Estee Lauder, Fortress, Freddie Mac, H & R Block, HSBC, Korn/Ferry International, MolsonCoors, Novell, NYMEX, Pfizer, Qualcomm, Wal-Mart Stores, VaxGen, Viacom, Wellcare and other public companies.
Bart has advised Wall Street’s most prominent financial institutions in connection with transactions where they either purchased other financial institutions or sold interests to other financial institutions. Certain of the firms that he has represented in principal transactions have included Swiss Bank, UBS, Travelers, ING and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken.
More recently, Bart has been advising directors of Hedge Fund complexes which have newly gone public in the United States as well as directors (that are US citizens) who have agreed to serve on the boards and board committees of large Chinese financial institutions.
Earlier in his career, Bart worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission as Special Counsel and then as Assistant Director, where he handled trading practices issues, legislative initiatives and served as a liaison with other parts of government, including the Federal Reserve and the staffs of certain congressional committees.
Professional Activities:
- He was elected to the Board of Directors of the Sanford C. Bernstein Mutual Funds and serves on the Audit Committee and Chairs the Governance and Nominating Committee of those Mutual Funds.
- In 1997, Bart was elected to the Board of Trustees of The Brookings Institution; he serves on its Executive Committee and has Chaired for six years its Governance and Nominating Committee; he currently Chairs the Public Responsibility and Ethics Committee of Brookings.
- Bart serves on the Membership Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations and has served on the Council on Foreign Relation’s Independent Task Force on Resources for Foreign Assistance; the Independent Task Force on Non-Lethal Technology and the Independent Task Force on Post-Conflict Iraq. He has traveled with the Council or represented the Council at conferences and meetings throughout Europe and the Middle East including Brussels, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Libya and Egypt. He serves on the Meetings Committee and the Nominating and Governance Committee of the Council. Bart was also a member of the advisory committee to the Council on Foreign Relations of the recently published report entitled; "Avoiding Transfers to Torture."
- Bart was elected to the Board of Directors of Allied World Assurance Holdings (NYSE: AWH) in 2006 and serves as Lead Director and Chair of the Nominations and Governance Committee.
- He is also serving as Chair of the Audit Committee of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and has been elected to the Board of the International Institute of Strategic Studies - US. Bart has served on the Boards of The Juilliard School (as Vice-Chairman), the Visiting Committee for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Milton Academy Mountain School.
Recently, Bart served as part of a task force for the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment in connection with a congressionally mandated study of the potential for economic warfare.
A prolific author and speaker, Bart addresses issues Directors face in the boardroom as well as balance of power and rules of engagement and involvement of independent Directors. His thoughts regarding the roles of Directors and independent Directors are encapsulated in Refocusing the Role of Directors in Light of the Current Economic Downturn, Bloomberg Law Reports Corporate Law and An Independent Voice on the Board, The New York Law Journal. Recent speaking engagements include: Panelist, Spencer Stuart's Discussion for IBM Executives and Alumni - Preparing for Change: The New Dynamics of Board Service (2009); Moderator, C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics - International Antitrust Law and Policy: Opportunities for Greater Convergence (2009); Panelist, 2008 Harvard China Review - Building Chinese Confidence; Panelist, 2007 Outstanding Directors Forum; Panelist, 2007 AESC Americas Conference - Moving Beyond Compliance: The Effect of the New Rules on Corporate Boards; Presenter, 2007 Reputational Risk at PRIMA Breakfast Meeting and Panelist, 2006 Outstanding Directors Forum.
Recent Articles:
Bart has been quoted extensively in various publications including: The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation’s blog in its post Nonprofit Corporate Governance: The Board’s Role; Q&A With Cahill's Bart Friedman, Law360; After the Storm, The Conference Board Review; Boards Go Global, BusinessWeek; The Best Choice for Small Business, Growing Wealth; Outside Counsel Take Seat at Boardroom Table, Law.com; Apple Lore, Forbes.com; General Counsel, Boards Disagree on Outside Counsel Use, Agenda; Expect Auditors to Focus on Fraud, Compliance Week; Homestore Created a Map for Cooperation, Los Angeles Daily Journal; Investigations Loom Large on Board Agendas, Agenda, a Money-Media publication; and Homestore: "One Company that did it right.", Investigation News.
