Manhattan D.A. launches Corporate Crime and Antitrust Task Force

On October 14, 2026, District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. announced the Office’s first Corporate Crime and Antitrust Task Force (the Task Force), which will target fraud and misconduct by corporations and their executives, with antitrust, health care and consumer fraud at the top of its list.¹

The announcement signals that corporate white-collar enforcement will be a priority of D.A. Bragg’s second term. It comes amid a shifting federal white-collar enforcement landscape and signals that state and local prosecutors may play an increasingly prominent role in corporate enforcement. Companies doing business in Manhattan should expect more aggressive local prosecutors in matters once viewed as federal territory.

Who is leading it and what it will target

Matthew Bogdanos, a 40-year veteran of the Office, leads the Task Force, which will include about five Assistant District Attorneys and two investigative analysts. The Task Force will also draw on the Office’s career investigators, forensic accountants and the Financial Intelligence Unit.

D.A. Bragg framed the mission as one of “systemic accountability,” promising that the Task Force “will doggedly pursue the big picture: the high-level actors, corporations, and structures that enable and profit from crime at the expense of New Yorkers.” It builds on the Office’s practice of looking “upstream,” as in its work on ghost guns, cryptocurrency-related crime, large-scale retail “fencing” operations and websites that act as conduits of crime.
Manhattan has been here before: former D.A. Robert Morgenthau prosecuted Tyco International executives for fraud in 2005, and former D.A. Cyrus Vance worked with federal authorities on the BNP Paribas sanctions case that ended in an $8.9 billion settlement in 2014.

A crowded field of New York enforcers

The Task Force joins a crowded field of enforcers. New York’s Martin Act (General Business Law Article 23-A) gives the New York Attorney General (NYAG) broad authority to investigate securities and commodities fraud, including through compulsory process, and to pursue civil and criminal remedies. The Act also creates criminal offenses for specified fraudulent conduct involving securities and commodities, with the elements and required mental state varying depending on the offense charged.

Meanwhile, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) oversees more than 3,100 banking, insurance and other financial institutions with assets totaling nearly $10 trillion, and its Consumer Protection and Financial Enforcement Division is responsible for protecting and educating consumers, fighting consumer fraud and ensuring that regulated entities comply with New York and federal consumer protection laws.

With the Manhattan D.A. dedicating new resources to corporate crime, companies face increased potential for overlapping investigations. A single course of conduct may attract parallel or sequential scrutiny from the Manhattan D.A., NYAG, NYDFS and federal authorities, raising important questions about interagency coordination, the sequencing of document productions and witness interviews, cooperation credit and the potential for a civil regulatory inquiry to lead to criminal scrutiny.

Actions companies may want to consider now

•  Expect state-level criminal exposure. Companies, especially in financial services, health care, consumer-facing industries and antitrust-sensitive markets, may face criminal scrutiny for conduct that once drew only federal or civil attention.
• Understand that executives and intermediaries may be in the crosshairs. Because the Task Force targets “the high-level actors, corporations, and structures that enable and profit from crime,” senior executives, intermediaries and service providers may be scrutinized alongside the entities directly involved.
• Plan for the D.A. in every strategy. Companies facing NYAG, NYDFS or federal inquiries may consider factoring in a possible parallel or follow-on Manhattan D.A. investigation, including when weighing self-disclosure under federal programs, such as the corporate enforcement and voluntary self-disclosure program the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on February 24, 2026.
• Stress-test compliance. Whether or not under scrutiny, companies may take this opportunity to confirm that their internal controls, investigative procedures and reporting hotlines effectively detect and promptly evaluate potential misconduct.

Our team

Eversheds Sutherland’s New York-based white collar and investigations team includes former federal and state prosecutors who represent companies and individuals in government and internal investigations:

•  Ronald W. Zdrojeski, Partner, is a former assistant district attorney in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office with decades of trial experience defending Fortune 500 companies (including corporate officers), insurers and individuals in criminal and civil investigations and conducting internal investigations.
• Meghana D. Shah, Partner, has over two decades of experience managing domestic and international litigation and investigations, including multi-lingual investigations, and practices regularly in New York state and federal courts.
• Negar Tekeei, Partner and Co-Global Head of Corporate Crime and Investigations, spent more than a decade as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, most recently as Co-Chief of the National Security and International Narcotics Unit, and has handled criminal and regulatory investigations involving securities fraud, antitrust and insider trading.
• Michael P. Robotti, Partner, served for eight years as an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York and represents corporations and individuals in white collar criminal defense, government and internal investigations and litigation involving DOJ and the SEC.
• Ayyan S. Zubair, Associate, represents companies and individuals in complex commercial litigation and white-collar matters, including internal and regulatory investigations, and previously clerked for the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the Supreme Court of Nevada.

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If you have any questions about this legal briefing, please feel free to contact any of the attorneys listed or the Eversheds Sutherland attorney with whom you regularly work.

_{1 Press Release, Manhattan Dist. Att'y's Off., D.A. Bragg Launches New "Corporate Crime and Antitrust Task Force" (Oct. 14, 2026), https://manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-launches-new-corporate-crime-and-antitrust-task-force/.}