Shayla Harlev

Kirkland & Ellis advised MB2 Dental, a Charlesbank portfolio company, on a $525 million investment by private equity firm Warburg Pincus. The investment will provide liquidity options to the company’s doctor partners at an enterprise value in excess of $3.5 billion. This deal marks the company’s third recapitalization in the last seven years. Charlesbank will continue its longstanding partnership with the company. MB2 Dental is a first-of-its-kind dental partnership organization (DPO), which empowers dentists to preserve their profession by ensuring clinical autonomy and providing resources and support to its doctor owners. Read the transaction press release The Kirkland team included corporate lawyers Dave Gusella and Shayla Harlev; debt finance lawyers John Ilardo; capital markets lawyers Josh Korff and Leia Andrew; tax lawyers Mark Schwed and Steven Ort; and healthcare & life sciences regulatory lawyer Dennis Williams.

Nov 13

1 min

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's enforcement division is set to be led by a former federal prosecutor who tackled financial fraud and insider trading cases in the Southern District of New York before turning to private practice, most recently as a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig LLP. A CFTC spokesperson confirmed to Law360 that David I. Miller will join the agency as director of enforcement under Chairman Michael Selig. "David's decades of experience and proven track record as a commodities and derivatives litigator will play a critical role in ensuring the Division is focused on its core purpose of policing fraud, abuse, and manipulation," Selig said in a statement. Miller joins the CFTC as the agency's authority potentially expands to cover digital assets and adjusts to the explosion of prediction markets. He spent over five years as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York before turning to white collar and enforcement defenses as a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP in 2014 and later joining Greenberg Traurig as a litigation shareholder in 2019. Earlier in his career, Miller served as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and provided litigation counsel to the CIA before pursuing terrorists as a U.S. Department of Justice trial attorney in 2007. He served as the CIA's assigned representative in the prosecution of former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. In 2009, Miller moved to the Southern District of New York under then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, where he turned to prosecuting financial crimes as a member of the securities and commodities fraud task force, among other roles. Miller handled a multitude of insider trading actions in New York, including as a member of the team that handled "Operation Perfect Hedge," which led to over 80 convictions related to insider trading offenses. On the defense side, Miller recently beat back a watershed crypto insider trading case against former OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain, whom a jury initially convicted on charges tied to NFTs he bought knowing they would later be featured on his employer's NFT marketplace homepage. Miller had argued the activity wasn't insider trading because Chastain's conduct didn't involve securities or commodities trading and that the information he used to trade didn't provide any commercial value to his employer to sustain a fraud conviction. Though a jury convicted Chastain in May 2023, Miller and appellate counsel from Shapiro Arato Bach LLP won a reversal at the Second Circuit in July, when the appeals court found the Manhattan federal court was wrong to instruct the jury that the government didn't need to prove the featured NFT information was valuable to the company. Federal prosecutors formally dropped their case on Tuesday after they told the lower court in January that they wouldn't pursue a retrial. Miller also defended ex-Coinbase employee Ishan Wahi in the government's first-ever crypto insider tipping case. Wahi received two years in prison after admitting to tipping his brother and a friend to cryptocurrency listings that enabled them to make $1.5 million of illegal profit. Miller will take the helm at the CFTC's enforcement division as it faces a potential expansion of its authority over digital assets. Congress is contemplating throwing much of crypto oversight to the CFTC in its pending bill to regulate crypto markets, the Clarity Act. While the bill has stalled in the Senate, CFTC chair Selig has committed to using the agency's existing authority and collaborating with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to create a crypto regulatory framework. Miller's insider trading experience may also be a boon to the agency as it faces a new set of challenges to police prediction markets, which present novel opportunities to leverage insider information trading on the outcome of real-world events. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York has already said he foresees criminal prosecutions addressing prediction market trading. The CFTC's Selig has made clear he believes his agency is the primary regulator for event contract trading, with plans to write rules and battle state gambling regulators in enforcements where the CFTC's jurisdiction is at issue.

Feb 25

3 min

Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Michael S. Selig on Monday named Greenberg Traurig shareholder David I. Miller as the agency’s enforcement director, a key appointment as the derivatives regulator asserts a larger role in overseeing prediction markets and the cryptocurrency industry. The move comes as the CFTC has sharpened its jurisdictional stance and enforcement posture. The agency recently filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, asserting its exclusive jurisdiction over the U.S. commodity derivatives market, while lawmakers consider crypto legislation that could expand the CFTC’s authority. “I am honored and thrilled to join the CFTC at this exciting and transformative time,” Miller said in a statement on Monday. “I am grateful for the trust and confidence that chairman Selig has placed in me and thank him for appointing me to this critical role." After graduating from New York University School of Law in 1998, Miller began his career as a litigation associate before moving into public service in 2005. He first served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and later joined the Central Intelligence Agency. He then worked briefly as a counterterrorism trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. Miller later moved to New York to become an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District, where he joined the securities and commodities fraud task force. He was part of teams that prosecuted more than 80 defendants for insider trading offenses and coordinated closely with agencies, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Miller returned to the private sector in July 2014 as a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he worked in the firm’s white‑collar investigations and securities enforcement practices. During his time there, he also served as a consultant for the Showtime television series "Billions." He joined Greenberg Traurig as a shareholder in October 2019. At Greenberg Traurig, Miller represented Fortune 500 companies, banks, broker dealers, hedge funds, private equity firms, crypto businesses, corporate executives and other clients in criminal and civil enforcement matters, government investigations, complex litigation and national‑security cases. Miller has tried 12 jury and bench cases, including several multi-defendant securities and accounting fraud trials, and secured guilty verdicts against nearly all defendants on all counts as a federal prosecutor. As an appellate advocate, he has briefed and argued multiple cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Miller succeeds Paul Hayeck, who has served as acting enforcement director since June 2025. Hayeck will remain at the agency as chief of the enforcement division’s complex fraud task force, which targets market manipulation, abusive trading practices and other misconduct. Selig said Miller will play a key role in keeping the division focused on its core mission of policing fraud, abuse and manipulation, rather than drifting into policymaking. “I am delighted to welcome David to the CFTC,” Selig said. “He brings to the commission decades of experience as a federal prosecutor and white-collar defense attorney, with a proven track record of defending market participants against the novel legal theories of overzealous regulators and plaintiffs."

Mar 2

2 min

Kirkland & Ellis is advising private equity firm Montagu on the proposed acquisition of Johnson Matthey Plc’s medical device components (MDC) business. The definitive agreement was announced on March 20, 2024. MDC develops and manufactures miniature components for minimally invasive medical devices used in high-growth clinical specialties. The business focuses on complex and high-precision components made from Platinum Group Metals and Nitinol. MDC will operate as a standalone company. Read the transaction press release The Kirkland team is being led by corporate partners Shayla Harlev, Aprajita Dhundia, Adrian Maguire and Duncan Enista and associates Carmella Crinnion, Matt Suhosky and Bing Yi Lim; debt finance partners Ashley Gregory and Brittany Roger; technology & IP transactions partners Seth Traxler, Kevin Jacobsen and Joanna Schlingbaum; and tax partners Mark Schwed, Peter Abbott and William Dong and associates Nicole Martin and Michael Akpomiemie.

Mar 20

1 min

Kirkland & Ellis advised dental partnership organization MB2 Dental on a $2.344 billion unitranche debt facility with credit vehicles and accounts managed by KKR, who served as lead investor and arranger. Proceeds will be used to fund upcoming acquisitions and future growth for the company, following a record year of growth in 2023 with 150 new partnerships. Read the transaction press release The Kirkland team was led by debt finance partner John Ilardo and associates Lucas Hinds and Nick Whitten; corporate partners Shayla Harlev, Dave Gusella and Larissa Cespedes-Yaffar; tax partners Mark Schwed and Steven Ort and associate Charles Roarty; and healthcare partners Dennis Williams and Olivia Seraphim and associates Janine Tougas and Kayla Monique McCallum.

Feb 15

1 min