Concentration

Summary

Michael Barta is a senior partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Baker Botts. He is the head of the Trial Department in Washington, and the worldwide Chair of the firm’s White-Collar Crime and Corporate Investigations group. In his twenty-two years of practice, he has served as lead trial counsel in state and federal courts in eighteen states and the District of Columbia, and he has won dismissals, summary judgments, and jury verdicts for his clients in some of their biggest cases.

Mr. Barta is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is ranked in The Legal 500 and in Chambers USA, which has noted his “impressive trial skills” and his “down-to-earth” style, and which describes him as “one of the go-to guys for significant complex commercial litigation across the states.” In 2007, Mr. Barta was featured in The National Law Journal’s “Defense Hot List” for winning an acquittal of a healthcare executive charged with conspiracy to violate the Medicare Anti-Kickback Act. He is also known for patent litigation, and for his work in the Nixon Papers trial, the Halliburton FCPA investigation, and an internal investigation for NASCAR into the fatal accident involving Dale Earnhardt at the 2001 Daytona 500.

Mr. Barta represents companies and individuals under investigation by law enforcement authorities and he defends the wrongly accused at trial. Much of this work has focused on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and analogous corruption statutes in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. He also has experience in the defense of a wide variety of other substantive charges, including perjury and false statements, obstruction of justice, mail and wire fraud, securities, bankruptcy, health-care and computer fraud, money-laundering, antitrust violations, and political corruption.

Mr. Barta's civil practice involves representing companies and individuals in complex commercial cases headed for trial. His work has focused primarily on intellectual property matters. He also regularly defends companies in energy and environmental litigation, as well as class action lawsuits.

Mr. Barta is an honors graduate of Princeton University and the Harvard Law School, and a former clerk to the Honorable Jerome Farris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has served as an instructor in trial advocacy with the National Institutes of Trial Advocacy and the Georgetown University Law Center. He is regularly listed in Best Lawyers in America in the categories of White-Collar Criminal Defense, Patent Litigation, Commercial Litigation, and Environmental Litigation. He has been listed in Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers, and the Washingtonian’s “Best Legal Minds in Washington,” and his trial work has been featured in The American Lawyer's Special Section on the Litigation Department of the Year.

Prior to joining Baker Botts, Mr. Barta was a partner at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin.

 Representative Engagements

•  Won a complete acquittal for a health-care executive charged with conspiracy to violate the Medicare Anti-Kickback Act. 
• Won a $60 million verdict for the Republic of Venezuela in a lawsuit seeking to recover assets looted from a failed Venezuelan bank. 
•  Won dismissal of a patent infringement action against Samsung Electronics in a case involving LCD television screens and computer modules.
• Won summary judgment on patent infringement claims against Samsung in the District of Delaware.
• Won summary judgment for Marathon Oil Company in a $96 million breach-of-contract case relating to gas interests in the Marcellus Shale.
• Won the dismissal of breach of warranty claims against Marathon in a nine-figure breach of contract action relating to gas-to-fuels technologies.
• Won a jury verdict for the full amount sought in an accounting malpractice lawsuit in Virginia.
• Represented the Estate of Richard Nixon in a lawsuit seeking just compensation for the government's taking of the Watergate tapes and Presidential papers, with the case settling on favorable terms following closing arguments.
• Represented Halliburton in an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office, into alleged corrupt payments in connection with the construction of an LNG facility in Nigeria. 
• Represented the Audit Committee of Freddie Mac in an internal investigation into alleged financial and accounting irregularities associated with a $3 billion financial restatement. 
• Represented a prominent individual in the Congressional investigation into alleged improper campaign contributions in the 1992 Presidential election cycle. 
• Represented NASCAR in an internal investigation into the fatal accident involving Dale Earnhardt at the 2001 Daytona 500. 
• Obtained a new trial and overturned the death sentence for an Oklahoma man who served nine years on death row for the notorious Geronimo Bank murders

Publications, Speeches and Presentations

• “A Closer Look at Multi-jurisdictional Enforcement,” Compliance Week, 2010 Annual Conference, Washington D.C., May 2010
• “Challenges in Conducting Cross-Border Investigations,” ABA, The Second Annual National Institute on Internal Corporate Investigations, Washington, DC, May 2010
• “FCPA Issues Facing Multinational Companies,” Compliance Week, 2009 Annual Conference, Washington D.C., June 2009
• “Keeping It Real: Making White Collar Witnesses Blue Collar Friendly”, ABA Teleconference, Business Law Section, June 2008
• Mediator and panel presenter, “Computer Crime,” American Bar Association, Business Law Section, Columbus, Ohio, March 2000