SEC Veteran Mark K. Braswell Joins Venable LLP; Nine-Year SEC Enforcement Attorney Will Concentrate on Corporate Investigations, White Collar & Securities Litigation and Compliance.

Business Editors/Legal Writers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2003

Braswell Joins Former SEC Colleague Nancy Grunberg in Venable's

Corporate Governance Group

Making a significant addition to its corporate governance practice, Venable LLP has brought on departing Securities and Exchange Commission attorney Mark K. Braswell as a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C. office. Braswell is the second senior SEC Enforcement attorney to join Venable in the past year, following the hire last fall of former Assistant Director of Enforcement Nancy Grunberg.

Braswell, 39, is coming off an almost nine-year stint at the SEC. In January 1995, he joined the Commission as a Staff Attorney in the Division of Enforcement, was promoted to Senior Counsel the following year and then to Branch Chief in May 1999, where he served as a member of the Division's senior staff and supervised a number of significant SEC investigations. His responsibilities included coordinating investigations with the NYSE, NASD, foreign regulators and various state and federal civil and criminal authorities, including the IRS, FBI and Department of Justice. Braswell also has first-hand experience investigating a wide range of SEC violations, including corporate financial fraud, insider trading, market manipulation and broker/dealer misconduct. Prior to joining the SEC, Braswell spent four years at a major national law firm, where his practice focused on complex commercial litigation.

Among the matters Braswell managed at the SEC were the investigation of a prominent NFL sports agent, SEC v. William H. "Tank" Black; a complex fraud litigation involving an NYSE-listed national retailer, SEC v. Fabri-Centers of America; and several inquiries concerning trading practices in the hedge fund industry.

Braswell joins a very active corporate governance practice at Venable. Led by firm chairman Benjamin R. Civiletti, former Attorney General of the United States, Venable has an interdisciplinary team of attorneys from across its various practices to assist senior executives, boards of directors and audit committees in managing their risk, ensuring compliance and protecting company reputations.

Venable has conducted high-profile investigations in industries such as banking, retail, petroleum, consumer products and others. The firm has four attorneys with SEC experience and more than a dozen former prosecutors and regulators, including former senior United States Justice Department officials, Assistant United States Attorneys, former federal banking regulators, as well as former Assistant State's Attorneys and Public Defenders.

"Working at the Commission has been extremely rewarding and has made me understand why the U.S. financial marketplace remains a model of transparency and liquidity, despite a series of headline abuses and scandals in the past several years," Braswell said. "However, I am looking forward to my return to private practice and to the challenge of helping industry and business clients deal with a host of emerging issues in securities law regulation and corporate governance."

"For the past nine years, Mark Braswell has been at the center of securities law enforcement," said Geoffrey Garinther, who co-heads Venable's Corporate Governance and Investigations Group. "As both a manager and line attorney, he's been helping to police the capital markets and has had his hand on the pulse of Wall Street. We are tremendously pleased to have that experience in the service of our clients. The likelihood of a company's confronting an SEC or Justice Department investigation has increased dramatically in this climate, and it will be invaluable to have someone of Mark's caliber by their side."

"At the SEC, Mark was known as a creative problem solver," said Venable partner Nancy Grunberg. "His tireless energy and willingness to confront complex problems head on will serve the firm's clients well."

Stewart Webb, who heads Venable's Litigation Division and is one of the firm's leading securities litigators, said, "Mark's credentials span so many areas critical to our clients -- securities litigation, of course, but he also he knows how government investigations work and has a deep knowledge of both criminal and civil litigation, as well as understanding of white collar issues and corporate and financial enforcement and corporate governance. We expect to call on his talents immediately across a broad range of matters not limited to litigation."

While at the SEC, Braswell was singled out multiple times for recognition. Former Chairman Arthur Levitt bestowed an award for community service on him for founding a volunteer corps of SEC employees who did both pro bono legal and non-legal work in the D.C. community. Braswell also received an award for Realtime Enforcement from former Chairman Harvey Pitt. From FBI Director Robert Mueller, he received a special commendation for outstanding coordination with the Department of Justice in a joint SEC-FBI investigation.

Braswell graduated with Honors in 1990 from the University of Tennessee College of Law and was the recipient there of the Arthur B. Hyman merit scholarship. He matriculated as an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee as well, receiving a B.A. with High Honors in 1986. As an undergraduate, Braswell was one of a handful of students selected to participate in the University's interdisciplinary College Scholars Program, garnering a double major in European History and Political Science. As a requirement for graduation, Braswell completed a masters-level thesis. That thesis, "Conservative Pragmatism Versus Liberal Principles: Warren E. Burger on the Suppression of Evidence, 1956-86," was published in the Creighton Law Review the summer before Braswell entered law school.

As one of America's top 100 law firms, Venable LLP has lawyers practicing in all areas of corporate and business law, complex litigation, intellectual property and government affairs. Venable serves corporate, institutional, governmental, nonprofit and individual clients throughout the U.S. and around the world from its base of operations in and around Washington, D.C.