F. Franklin Amanat

Frank has led many civil cases for private plaintiffs and public sector clients in federal and state courts. His practice today focuses on representing relators in False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam matters; whistleblowers submitting confidential tips to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other agencies; and plaintiffs in other fraud-related litigation. He also represents defrauded investors in securities litigation, including class actions, derivative, and opt-out proceedings; consumers injured by deceptive trade practices; victims of terrorist attacks and other mass torts and human rights violations; governmental entities, and persons harmed by corporate and governmental misconduct. He provides Motley Rice clients with extensive investigatory, arbitration, trial, and appellate experience, coupled with a broad range of legal and policy knowledge.

For more than 20 years, Frank served in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, as well as the Offices of Legal Policy and Immigration Litigation. He managed over 400 cases on behalf of more than 70 federal agencies in a wide variety of litigation areas. Many of those cases were litigated under the FCA, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), the various civil rights acts, and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). He also obtained and collected over $15 million in asset forfeiture judgments.* Frank applies these experiences representing Motley Rice whistleblower, antitrust, securities fraud, antiterrorism, public client, and human rights clients.

In 2018, Frank was recognized with multiple awards for his work as lead counsel in United States v. Barclays Capital, a fraud case involving the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities that resulted in a $2 billion settlement*—the largest single civil penalty recovery by the DOJ involving actions filed under FIRREA.

Additional noteworthy cases Frank litigated prior to joining Motley Rice include: 

• Alharbi v. Miller (Lead Counsel)
• In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Antitrust Litig.
• Kuykendall v. Amazon Studios LLC (Lead Counsel)
• Simone v. United States (Co-Lead Counsel)
• State of Illinois ex rel. Edelweiss Fund LLC vs. Bank of America Capital Corp. et al.
• State of New Mexico v. Solvay America, Inc.
• Tummino v. Hamburg (Lead Counsel)
• United States ex rel. Gill v. CVS Health Corp. (Lead Counsel)

Outside the courtroom, Frank spent two years directing the Government Civil Litigation Clinic at NYU School of Law as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Clinical Law. Frank served as Editor for the Harvard Law Review. After completing his legal studies, he clerked for Judge Frank E. Schwelb of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. He is fluent in English, French and has a working knowledge of Farsi.

*Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. 

SELECT PUBLICATIONS:

• Practical Aspects of the Anti-Terrorism Act: “Follow the Money” or Else …, Carver 33rd Annual Accredited CLE Update, December 2020
• Civil Rights and the Future of Qualified Immunity, 360 Advocacy, December 2020
• How Congress Can Depoliticize the Supreme Court, Law360, September 2020
• Int’l Human Rights Law Group, In the Public Eye: Parliamentary Transparency in Europe and North America (1995) (contributing author)
• The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (15th 1991) (Executive Editor)
• Recent Development, 12 J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 1081 (1989) (commenting on Fort Wayne Books v. Indiana, 109 S. Ct. 916 (1989) (applicability of civil RICO laws to obscenity violations))