Ex-Cognizant Executive Rethinking Paul Weiss After Trump Deal

Former Cognizant Technology Solutions executive Steven Schwartz appears to be rethinking his decision to fire Paul Weiss now that President Donald Trump has rescinded an executive order that took aim at the firm.

Lawyers from Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP had been defending Schwartz on foreign bribery charges since 2018. But the lawyers filed a motion to withdraw March 19, saying Schwartz was terminating them in response to Trump’s March 14 executive order targeting the law firm.

Schwartz “is considering and consulting with counsel regarding the announcement last night that the President has rescinded the March 14, 2025 Executive Order concerning Paul Weiss,” his new lawyers with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP said in a Friday letter to Judge Michael E. Farbiarz of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey.

They said they will be prepared to discuss is views “on the impact of that decision on Paul Weiss’s motion to withdraw and on the trial date for this matter” at a conference March 24.

Farbiarz hasn’t yet granted Paul Weiss’s motion to withdraw.

The conference will be ex parte—that is, held without the government present—and in camera—meaning behind closed doors.

Trial is scheduled for April 7 on charges that Schwartz authorized bribes in India in connection with the construction of an office park here. But his case is among the cases undergoing the Justice Department’s priority review in response to a Feb. 10 executive order pausing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement.

After hiring the new lawyers, Schwartz asked the court to postpone the trial date so they can get up to speed.

Trump’s since rescinded order on Paul Weiss had instructed government agencies to limit interactions with the firm’s employees and to restrict their access to federal government buildings “when such access would threaten the national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of the United States.”

Trump announced Thursday that he was withdrawing the order after he said he and the firm had entered into an agreement.

Among other things, he said Paul Weiss agreed to “dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services” over the course of Trump’s term to support his administration’s initiatives.

In addition to Paul Weiss, Trump has issued similar orders against Covington & Burling LLP and Perkins Coie LLP in recent weeks.

The case is United States v. Coburn, D.N.J., No. 2:19-cr-00120, letter filed 3/21/25.