Jim Perry is Counsel in Simpson Thacher’s National Security Regulatory Practice. Based in the Firm’s Washington D.C. office, Jim has extensive experience advising multinational corporate clients, private equity funds and global financial institutions in the areas of economic sanctions, anti-money laundering (AML), banking secrecy, Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), foreign direct investment (FDI), and money transmission laws and regulations.
Jim has conducted complex, cross-border sanctions and AML investigations in Europe and Asia and diligence for significant corporate mergers and acquisitions and private equity fund raises. He has advised clients on transaction risk related to CFIUS and FDI and has steered numerous transactions through related reviews and investigations. As part of his AML practice, Jim also advises on the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) and FinCEN’s Beneficial Ownership Information rule.
In the course of his work, Jim has advised clients across a wide array of sectors, including aerospace, banking and payments, cryptocurrency/blockchain, defense contracting, fintech, health care, insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, private equity, satellite communication, semiconductors and social media. In recognition of his work, Jim was named one of Best Lawyers’ 2024 Ones to Watch in America.
Prior to becoming an attorney, Jim served as an officer in the U.S. Navy and was deployed to the Middle East. He then spent several years in the Department of the Navy managing bilateral security programs with U.S. partners in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. He later led analytical support to federal counterintelligence and technology protection efforts, working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Department of Commerce, and Department of Homeland Security.
Jim graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was an editor at the Georgetown Journal of International Law. His pro bono legal work includes extensive work with the veteran community, the exoneration of a Navy veteran wrongfully convicted of murder, and a successful asylum petition on behalf of a Somali man fleeing terrorism in his home country.