Karl Buch, national co-chair of AKD
Partners’s Global Investigations
focusing on white collar criminal matters,
government and regulatory investigations,
and civil litigation.
Bringing years of experience as a federal
prosecutor, in-house lawyer, and law firm
partner, Karl represents companies and
advises corporate boards in high-stakes
investigations and special matters.
Clients seek out Karl for his ability to
de-risk complex situations in US and ex-US
markets and resolve complex disputes with
government offices and other
counterparties. Most immediately, Karl
joined AKD Partners from Pfizer, where he
was an Assistant General Counsel in the
Government Investigations group. At
Pfizer, Karl’s responsibilities
included managing government and
regulatory investigations across the
company's global operations. He interacted
with prosecutors' offices in the US and
abroad regarding a variety of areas of
law, among them anti-bribery,
anti-kickback, tax, and environment
matters. He also managed numerous civil
matters involving whistleblowers and
claims that the company violated federal
and state false claims acts and other
consumer protection statutes.
Karl has also represented a variety of
companies in the healthcare,
pharmaceutical, medical device,
technology, and industrial sectors. He has
directed many internal and
government-facing investigations on behalf
of his clients in the US (many of these
being whistleblower actions, qui tams, or
anti-kickback cases) and in Asia, Africa,
Latin America, Europe and the Middle East
(many of these being
anti-bribery/anti-corruption cases),
bringing these to successful closure. He
also regularly advises on potential
violations of the FCPA, the False Claims
Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute.
Earlier in his career, Karl was as
Assistant United States Attorney in the
United States Attorney's Office for the
District of New Jersey, Criminal Division.
As a federal prosecutor, Karl was a member
of the Office's Securities and Health Care
Fraud Unit, where he prosecuted
individuals and corporations for criminal
violations of federal healthcare,
securities, bank and tax laws. In 2007, he
was awarded the FBI Director's Award.
