Jay Holtmeier co-leads WilmerHale’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and Anti-Corruption Group and is a member of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice. He represents institutions and individuals in complex government and internal investigations and matters of corporate governance and compliance. He has particular experience in matters involving the FCPA, and he also is well versed in issues related to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) matters and Dodd-Frank Act whistleblower provisions. Mr. Holtmeier's breadth of experience as a litigator includes service as a federal prosecutor, a senior in-house attorney and a lawyer in private practice. 

In FCPA matters, Mr. Holtmeier has represented clients in government and internal investigations involving conduct in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Australia. He regularly counsels clients facing difficult FCPA issues in a variety of business contexts, and he has assisted clients in numerous industries in developing and implementing FCPA compliance programs. He devotes substantial attention to advising clients on FCPA problems that arise in the context of mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other corporate transactions. He writes and speaks extensively on the subject and is a co-author, with Kimberly Parker, Erin Sloane, Roger Witten and Lillian Potter, of the leading treatise in the field, Complying with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (Matthew Bender, 10th ed. 2021) and has been described by Global Investigations Review as having been involved in more public FCPA resolutions over a recent 10-year period than almost any other lawyer.

Mr. Holtmeier joined WilmerHale in 2004. He has also served as a senior vice president and principal legal counsel with the Reuters Group (now Thomson Reuters), a role in which he was responsible for all litigation and compliance matters in North and South America. As an assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he tried several cases to verdict and led extensive grand jury investigations of various crimes, including racketeering, securities fraud, murder, narcotics and counterfeiting. Significant prosecutions included United States v. Jose Muyet, et al., and United States v. Ronald Ocasio, et al., related cases involving more than twenty murders, for which Mr. Holtmeier received the Director's Award for Superior Performance from the Executive Office for US Attorneys, and United States v. Carol Bayless, which received national attention and calls for the impeachment of the presiding US District Judge.

Professional Activities

Mr. Holtmeier is a long-time member of the board of directors of The City Bar Fund of the New York City Bar Association and formerly served as its chairman.