Larry West retired from the partnership in January 2016. Mr. West was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins. His practice focused on representing individuals and entities in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and other securities-related enforcement matters, conducting internal investigations, and counseling corporations and their officers regarding disclosure and corporate compliance issues.
Before joining Latham in 2006, Mr. West was an Associate Director of the Division of Enforcement at the SEC where he worked for 12 years. At the SEC, he was responsible for supervising a broad range of enforcement activities, including investigations involving issuer accounting fraud and other disclosure violations, audit failures, insider trading, broker-dealer misconduct and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Mr. West oversaw accounting fraud cases, including WorldCom and Parmalat. He was the lead investigator on the Commission’s municipal securities yield-burning cases, and he supervised SEC staff working on the Enron investigation and on the Commission's industry-wide investigations into the auction-rate securities market and mutual fund breakpoints.
In 2002, Mr. West was awarded the SEC’s Stanley Sporkin Award, which recognizes those who have made "exceptionally tenacious and insightful contributions" to the enforcement of the securities laws. Additionally, Chambers USA ranks Mr. West as one of the nation's leading Securities Regulation attorneys.