Akin Brings on Trio of Trade Partners From Hughes Hubbard

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is adding a trio of partners from Hughes Hubbard & Reed to its international trade practice in Washington D.C.

Ryan Fayhee, Roy Liu, and Tyler Grove join Akin as partners as the firm continues to build out its office in the nation’s capital.

Governments are signaling more enforcement in sanctions and export control investigations and the market is seeing that occur, Jonathan Poling, Akin’s international trade practice head said in a statement.

“This group recognizes this reality and strengthens our ability to support clients engaged in trade globally, but also critically at the intersection of U.S. and China relations,” he said.

Fayhee is a former senior prosecutor and national security official with the Justice Department who has prosecuted cases involving export controls, sanctions, cybercrime, trade secret theft, and espionage. He is currently representing Paul Whelan, an American who has been in prison in Russia since 2018 on espionage charges he denies.

After nearly 11 years with the DOJ, Fayhee jumped to Baker McKenzie before joining Hughes Hubbard in 2018. He led the firm’s sanctions, export controls, and anti-money-laundering practice group and was a member of its executive committee.

Akin’s “first-class” international trade group, global footprint, and lobbying and congressional investigations team were some of the factors that made the firm an “attractive option” for the group, Fayhee said in an interview.

“My practice is largely reactive,” Fayhee said, “so being able to stand up a team to respond to a crisis or an investigation or whatever on an immediate basis with the right capability in the right places is super important and it’s something I’m really looking forward to.”

At the DOJ, Fayhee led its prosecution of oil services company Schlumberger. Its subsidiary, Schlumberger Oilfield Holdings Ltd, pleaded guilty to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and agreed to pay $232.7 million in 2015—the largest criminal fine at the time linked to sanctions violations.

He later represented Phillips auction house in a Senate investigation involving money laundering in the art market, Swedish telecom giant Ericsson related to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and the board of directors of French construction company Lafarge S.A. in a 2022 prosecution by the DOJ of its actions in Syria.

Beyond his trade practice, Fayhee also worked alongside the US State Department to secure the release in March of Rwandan human rights activist Paul Rusesabagina, who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda.”

Liu was chair of Hughes Hubbard’s greater China practice group, specializing in regulatory and compliance matters related to economic sanctions, export controls, anti-money laundering. He was a key member of the defense team in a 2018 federal investigation of Chinese telecom company ZTE Corp, securing a settlement for the company that lifted trade restrictions on it.

Grove, who became a Hughes Hubbard partner in January, advises clients on economic trade sanctions compliance and enforcement, among other matters.