Merilin Castillo Stephens is a litigation & enforcement associate whose practice includes white-collar criminal defense, civil enforcement matters, government investigations and related civil litigation. Merilin has extensive experience counseling corporate clients in connection with internal and government-facing criminal and regulatory investigations. She represents a wide range of multinational and publicly-traded businesses, private equity firms and their portfolio companies, as well as life science, health care, and pharmaceutical companies. Additionally, Merilin has completed an associated secondment in the legal department of a leading global pharmaceutical company.
Merilin maintains an active pro bono practice representing indigent defendants in federal criminal cases through the firm’s participation in the Criminal Justice Act program and serving as a firm liaison for the Innocence Project.
During law school, Merilin was the editor-in-chief of A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual, a premier resource designed to assist incarcerated individuals understand their legal rights, and was a student attorney for the Challenging the Consequences of Mass Incarceration Clinic. She served as the president of the First-Generation Professionals group and interned full time as a New York State Pro Bono Scholar at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Experience
- Represent health care and pharmaceutical companies in civil/criminal investigations by the Department of Justice concerning alleged violations of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute.
- Represent biotechnology firms, hedge funds, and private equity firms in investigations by the SEC and Massachusetts Securities Division. Represented individual in SEC insider trading investigation.
- Advise hedge funds and private equity firms on insider trading, MNPI and other securities enforcement matters.
- Represented multinational group investing and operating in industrial businesses in corporate internal investigation leading to various and ongoing commercial litigation actions.
- Represented major South American airline in an internal investigation concerning potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
- Conducted internal investigations for a U.S.-based multinational medical device company involving anti-corruption issues in Argentina.
- Represented pharmaceutical company in a second-level review by the FTC.
- Conduct internal investigations for pharmaceutical, private equity, hedge fund and biotechnology clients into whistleblower, fraud and other compliance issues; manage witness interviews, fact discovery, drafting investigative findings and legal analysis, including remedial measures.
- Assist independent compliance monitor in assessing the sufficiency of anti-bribery compliance controls of a global natural resource company pursuant to an agreement with the DOJ.