Palmina M Fava

Practice Areas

Palmina Fava is a partner at Vinson & Elkins’ New York office and the Co-Head of the Government Investigations & White Collar Defense practice group. With over 20 years of experience, Palmina represents clients in internal and government investigations, litigation, and corporate governance counseling, with a principal focus on matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), international anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and anti-bribery laws, accounting irregularities, bid rigging and unfair trade practices, off-label pharmaceutical marketing, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, cybersecurity, and data privacy.

Palmina regularly represents companies in matters before the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), other federal and state agencies, and international regulatory bodies. She leads teams in investigations in Latin America, throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Relying on her extensive language skills, she is capable of assisting clients in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English.

Palmina also designs and implements comprehensive, practical, and user-friendly corporate compliance programs tailored to a client’s particular risks and growth strategies. She provides employee and third-party training; conducts proactive reviews of a client’s high-risk business areas; structures commercial arrangements to protect against compliance risks; and handles due diligence of agents, joint venture partners, and targets in mergers and acquisitions or other investment transactions.

Palmina’s litigation practice focuses on commercial, business tort, and intellectual property disputes. She has served as lead litigation and trial counsel in matters involving breaches of fiduciary duty, breaches of contract, fraud, negligence, misappropriation of trade secrets, and insurance coverage. She has tried and defended cases in federal and state courts (including the US Supreme Court), and before arbitration panels, and has represented clients in appellate arguments, mediations, and negotiations.