Eva Carman is a leading civil and criminal litigator with more than 30 years of experience defending major financial institutions, investment advisers, and individuals in high-stakes regulatory investigations and litigation. As co-head of Ropes & Gray’s global securities enforcement practice and long-time managing partner of its 550-plus-lawyer New York office, she combines deep enforcement experience with extensive knowledge of the financial services industry.
Eva represents clients before the SEC, DOJ, CFTC, and FINRA, with a practice spanning insider trading, antitrust, employment litigation, crisis management, regulatory, and litigation matters involving private funds and broker-dealers. She has represented investment advisers in more than 250 SEC examinations and more than 85 enforcement investigations, advising registered investment advisers, private equity funds, hedge funds, real estate funds, mutual funds, and credit funds. Her practice extends globally and encompasses matters involving all 12 U.S. SEC offices.
Eva brings particular depth to the issues that drive regulatory scrutiny: fee and expense conflicts, affiliate arrangements, valuations, marketing, insider trading, sales practices and disclosures. Her command of these issues—and her understanding of the regulators examining them—makes her a go-to adviser for some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated financial organizations including Blackstone, Carlyle, and BTG.
Her work has earned national recognition from Chambers, The Legal 500, Crain’s and Best Lawyers in America. Clients describe her to Chambers as “extraordinarily knowledgeable,” “exceptionally smart,” and “superb at what she does.”
A recognized thought leader on enforcement and examination defense, Eva writes extensively, speaks at national conferences and has lectured at Columbia, NYU, and Fordham law schools.Experience
- Lead defense counsel in the SEC’s largest enforcement case – SEC v. Allianz.
- Counsel for one of the world’s largest investment advisers for six of their most recent SEC examinations.
- Defended Sound Point Capital Management, LP in an SEC enforcement investigation regarding MNPI policies and procedures.
- Conducted more than 45 mock SEC examinations.
- Represented advisers in more than 150 SEC examinations in addition to FINRA examinations.
- Defending a large real estate adviser in a CFTC investigation into 21F whistle blower issues.
- Successfully defended the private equity division of one of the largest investment banks in an SEC enforcement case relating to fee and expense conflicts.
- Defended a large California-based private equity firm in an insider trading investigation. (2023)
- Defending a large private equity firm in connection with allegations associated with use of operating partners.
- Defended a large real estate firm in a California based enforcement case regarding use of affiliates. (2019)
- Defending a California based private equity firm in an enforcement case related to allocation of expenses.
- Represented two of the largest investment advisers and one large bank in the SEC Off-Channel Investigation. (2024)
- Lead defense counsel for both respondents in the Securities & Exchange Commission matter known as SEC v. Everest Capital LLC and Marko Dimitrijevic, File No. 3-19777 (April 30, 2020).
- Lead counsel for a senior executive of Countrywide in the NY Funds securities class action. Successful in garnering one of only two dismissals at the summary judgment phase in that action. (Pappas v. Countrywide Financial Corporation)
- Successfully defended a host of accounting professionals and audit firms in connection with SEC and CFTC investigations into issues associated with the audit of CFTC registrants.
- Won a trial victory in a Delaware Chancery Court resulting in a precedent-setting opinion relating to a dissident director’s efforts to take control of a company. (Gunther v. 5i Sciences)
- Defended hedge funds, portfolio managers, and other investors in connection with a host of insider trading investigations and cases.
- Conducted FCPA diligence and investigations for companies with operations in Brazil, China, India, Russia, and Europe.
- Defended the CEO of an insurance company in a criminal action alleging falsification of the accounting documents and performance figures used to launch an initial public offering of the insurance company.
- Represented the president of an investment adviser in connection with criminal claims that the investment adviser was running a Ponzi scheme with investor funds.
- Successfully defended a number of market-timing investigations by the SEC, the CFTC, and the New York Attorney General.