Coates Lear

Member

coateslear@sgslitigation.com
303-530-3452 x 7

Recognized by Chambers USA and named to Securities Docket’s “Enforcement Elite,” Coates Lear represents companies, board committees, and individuals in regulatory and internal investigations and related litigation and compliance matters. A former senior enforcement attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Coates has investigated, prosecuted, and defended cases involving a wide range of issues, including financial reporting, securities offerings, audit practices, asset management, anti-money laundering compliance, federal health program payments, and insider trading. His clients have included public and private companies, audit committees, broker-dealers, investment advisers, audit professionals, and corporate executives.

Coates maintains a national practice, representing clients in investigations and litigation across the country. His matters have involved SEC offices from Boston to Los Angeles, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and state regulators. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Law360, Bloomberg Law, and The Anti-Corruption Report, among other publications, and has presented on SEC enforcement and internal investigations at a variety of forums.

According to Chambers USA, sources describe Coates as a “lawyer’s lawyer,” as “exceptionally persistent, . . . detail-oriented and tenacious,” and as someone who “quickly understands the most complex business and legal issues.” He has a keen interest in litigation technology and electronic discovery and leverages those tools to identify and synthesize key evidence to tell the client’s story. A Washington, DC native, Coates began his career as a litigator at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells Cadwalader) before moving to the firm’s Denver office in 2001. There, he worked on high-stakes litigation and white-collar matters alongside his future SGS colleagues, Andrew Shoemaker and Cindy Mitchell. Before joining SGS in 2021, Coates was a partner in the Government Investigations & White-Collar group at the international law firm of Squire Patton Boggs.

Representative Matters

Coates’ experience (including prior to joining SGS) includes:

• Defending the broker-dealer subsidiary of a large retirement plan service provider in an SEC investigation into potential violations of anti-money laundering rules

• Defending a digital streaming company in an SEC investigation concerning non-GAAP performance disclosures and compliance with SEC whistleblower protection rules

• Defending the former CFO of a public medical device company in parallel SEC/DOJ investigations and related civil litigation

• Defending multiple audit professionals in a PCAOB investigation concerning alteration of audit documentation and cooperation with a PCAOB inspection

• Defending a registered representative of a large broker-dealer in a sweeping FINRA investigation into allegedly excessive entertainment expenses and alleged misreporting of such expenses

• Conducting an internal investigation on behalf of a registered investment adviser into potential misuse of client assets and defending the firm in a related SEC investigation

• Defending an audit engagement partner in an SEC investigation concerning an audit by a foreign affiliate of a Big Four accounting firm

• Defending a crypto ATM company in a lawsuit arising from the fraudulent use of one of its machines

• Defending a manufacturing company in an SEC investigation into financial reporting and internal control issues, including inventory cost accounting, lease accounting, and journal entry controls

• Defending the spouse of an alleged fraudster in an SEC action seeking to recover investor funds