Rachel G. Skaistis focuses her practice on advising boards of directors and management in connection with government and internal investigations, shareholder demands, derivative actions and accounting restatements. Ms. Skaistis represents clients in matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the False Claims Act, insider trading, accounting and securities fraud and governance issues. She also handles a wide variety of general litigation, arbitration and appellate matters, including in the areas of employment, securities, bankruptcy and general commercial disputes.
Ms. Skaistis devotes substantial time to pro bono service. She is one of the liaison partners for Cravath’s relationship with Montefiore Children’s Hospital and Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and is also the liaison partner for Her Justice, an organization that procures pro bono legal services for low income women and children. She serves on the boards of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (“NYLPI”) and ExpandEd Schools, on the advisory committee of the National Women’s Law Center and as a member of the New York State Permanent Commission on Access to Justice.
Ms. Skaistis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received a B.A. in 1992 from Yale College. After graduating from Yale, Ms. Skaistis worked as a newspaper reporter in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1997, she received a J.D. cum laude from Cornell Law School, where she was Managing Editor of the Cornell Law Review.
Ms. Skaistis joined Cravath in 1997. In 1999, Ms. Skaistis served as a law clerk to Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She rejoined Cravath in 2000 and was elected a partner in 2004. Ms. Skaistis is a member of the Firm’s Office of the General Counsel and Co Chair of the Diversity Committee.
Represented a special litigation committee of the Board of Directors of Alphabet Inc. (the parent of Google) in shareholder legal proceedings related to past workplace conduct and data privacy issues. The parties reached a global settlement of the demand letter and derivative actions.
Represented a Special Committee of the Board of Twitter, Inc. (n/k/a X) in connection with a shareholder litigation demand letter.
Represented Telia Company in connection with FCPA investigations by the SEC, Department of Justice (DOJ) and Swedish and Dutch authorities, resulting in one of the largest FCPA resolutions ever. The resolution did not require the company to retain a compliance monitor, implement changes to its compliance program or periodically self-report on its compliance program to the DOJ or SEC.
Represented Novartis Pharmaceuticals in antitrust litigation brought on behalf of putative classes of direct and indirect purchasers, as well as several plaintiffs suing in an individual capacity, alleging an unlawful agreement with another drug manufacturer to delay generic competition for the drug Exforge®. Shortly before trial, Novartis reached a series of settlements with the parties to end nearly five years of litigation.
- Represented Crown Castle International Corp., the nation’s largest provider of communications infrastructure, and certain of its officers and directors in connection with putative securities class action litigation and related stockholder derivative litigation alleging that Crown Castle made false and misleading statements regarding revenue from its cell tower installation services. Ms. Skaistis also represented Crown Castle in a SEC investigation related to certain of the company’s accounting policies where the SEC staff recently determined not to recommend an enforcement action by the Commission.
- Dispute resolution
- Government and regulatory
- Securities
- White collar crime
- B.A., Yale College, 1992
- J.D. cum laude, Cornell Law School, 1997
- New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), Board Member
- ExpandEd Schools, Board Member
- National Women’s Law Center, Advisory Committee Member
- New York State Permanent Commission on Access to Justice, Member