Nate Lankford

Nate Lankford is a trusted advisor to multinational companies on matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), business and human rights (BHR), and other areas of international corporate compliance. Mr. Lankford partners with clients in multi-jurisdictional investigations, risk assessments, compliance program design and implementation, due diligence, compliance audits, and responsible sourcing strategies. In doing so, he helps clients holistically manage risks and build trust with stakeholders.

For companies under intense scrutiny from regulators, Mr. Lankford supports companies in efficiently investigating foreign bribery, fraud and other forms of corporate misconduct, and developing sound and practical compliance strategies. In these matters, Mr. Lankford advises senior executives and boards of directors and guides companies through investigations by enforcement agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Mr. Lankford draws on deep compliance program design and assessment experience gained through serving in key roles on multiple monitorship teams tasked by the DOJ and SEC with carrying out anti-corruption compliance reviews and assessments pursuant to FCPA settlement agreements.

Mr. Lankford founded Miller & Chevalier's Business & Human Rights practice and serves as its Practice Lead. In this role, Mr. Lankford helps companies live up to their responsibility to respect human rights – as articulated in the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights – and to keep pace with the rapidly evolving ecosystem of voluntary standards, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, emerging hard law rules for disclosures and mandatory due diligence, and increasing enforcement and litigation risks. Mr. Lankford has assisted companies in the extractives, solar, and apparel sectors in conducting due diligence to assess and mitigate risks of adverse human rights impacts. Mr. Lankford also helps companies comply with the U.S. prohibition on the importation of products made with forced labor (19 USC §1307 and related laws such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA)) and works with companies to effectively engage with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other stakeholders to appropriately respond to indicators of forced labor in supply chain relationships.

In these matters, Mr. Lankford has worked on location in many of the world's most challenging business environments – including countries in Central and East Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Americas – and has developed a solid understanding of risks faced by the extractives, healthcare, and telecommunications industries and the high-tech sector.

Mr. Lankford serves on the Advisory Board of the IBA's Business & Human Rights Committee and leads Miller & Chevalier's engagement with the Business & Human Rights Lawyers Association (of which the firm is a founding member).

Prior to earning his law degree, he worked as a freelance photographer for media clients including the Washington Post. While at Georgetown University Law Center, Mr. Lankford served as an Executive Editor of the Georgetown Journal of International Law.