Orrick White Collar Team Featured for Major Success in Securities Fraud Case Involving Pavandeep Bakhshi

6 minute read | August.07.2023

In this Law360 feature, a team led by partner Franklin Monsour is credited with a five-year effort that reduced an alleged $300 Million securities fraud indictment against our client to a single misdemeanor and a $5,000 fine.
The case involved Pavandeep Bakhshi, also known as Pav Bakhshi, a citizen of the United Kingdom who was indicted in December 2018 in an alleged $300 million securities fraud scheme involving the go-private sale of a Healthcare billing company.
Franklin served as lead counsel for Mr. Bakhshi from the early stages of the case, filing pretrial motions on his behalf and arguing that he stood indicted because of a codefendant’s self-serving confession—which attempted to cast blame on Mr. Bakhshi. After extensive negotiations, the legal team ultimately convinced the Government to dismiss the indictment in full, with Mr. Bakhshi pleading to a single misdemeanor with no loss amount and no victim.
The district court judge agreed with Franklin’s arguments that Mr. Bakhshi should receive a rare sentence of only a fine and no incarceration, no probation and no supervised release.
Franklin told Law360 the result was a “great outcome” for the client.

The Orrick team included of counsel Kristina Arianina and associate Alison Epperson. Lee Vartan of Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi PC and Kenneth A. Caruso of Mukasey Frenchman served as co-counsel.

The Government’s Indictment continues against codefendants, Paul Parmar, Sam Zaharis, and Ravi Chivukula in US v. Parmar, et al., 2:18-cr-00735-MCA (Dist. N.J.).