Biography
Robert Giuffra is Co-Chair of Sullivan & Cromwell. He has served on S&C’s Management Committee since 2007. He focuses on “bet-the-company,” securities, white-collar criminal, product liability, commercial, insurance, banking and tax litigation.
A fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, he is a nationally recognized litigator. The American Lawyer has selected him as “Litigator of the Year,” “Transatlantic Disputes/Regulatory Lawyer of the Year,” and as “Litigator of the Week” eight times since June 2011, most recently in August 2023. He is a ten-time Law360 MVP, the most for any lawyer since Law360 started naming MVPs. Euromoney has named him a “Top 100 Trial Lawyer,” and The Financial Times profiled him as one of its ten leading U.S. legal innovators.
Over the past 25 years, Bob has served as lead counsel in litigations and government investigations arising out of the financial crisis, the bankruptcy of Enron, the Volkswagen and Fiat Chrysler diesel emissions crises, and the accounting frauds at Computer Associates and HealthSouth Corporation. He has represented many of the world’s leading financial institutions, including Allianz, ABN AMRO, Bank of America, The Bank of New York, Barclays, BNP Paribas, CIBC, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Natixis, RBC, RBS, Société Générale, UBS, and Wachovia. His corporate clients have included Biovail, Boeing, Cablevision, Computer Associates, DISH Network, Enbridge, Ericsson, Exxon, Grupo Mexico, Kinross, Kohl’s, McKesson, Oxford Health Plans, Philips Electronics, Porsche, Tenaris, Tudor Investment Corporation, UnitedHealth Group, and Vornado Realty Trust. His individual clients have included CEOs, lawyers and senior government Officials.
Bob has served in all three branches of the U.S. government, including as a law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Ralph Winter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as the Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and in the White House. Governors of both political parties have appointed him to the N.Y. State Commission on Public Integrity and the State Ethics Commission. While at S&C, he also served as a Special Assistant District Attorney, N.Y. County.
Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Bob to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the U.S. Courts. A native New Yorker, he has served on the State’s Permanent Commission on Access to Justice, the State-Federal Judicial Council, the Commission on Attorney Discipline, the Commercial Division Advisory Council, and the S.D.N.Y. Magistrate Judge Selection Panel. He has also served as Chair of the American Swiss Foundation, Chair of the Historical Society of the New York Courts, President of the Federal Bar Council, Vice President of the Supreme Court Historical Society, Trustee of Catholic Charities and the American Ballet Theatre, and on the Advisory Council of Princeton’s James Madison Program.
Bob graduated from Princeton, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and from Yale Law School. He lives in New York City and Southampton with his wife Joyce and their three children, Elizabeth, Caroline, and Robert III.
