Rebecca Grapsas

Rebecca regularly advises on global compliance program design, implementation, review and oversight, including the interplay between corporate compliance and ESG-related risks and opportunities. Her fit-for-purpose and risk-based approach to corporate compliance programs is informed by her experience developing and implementing a global compliance program during a six-month secondment at a major diversified multinational in the Middle East.

Rebecca has extensive expertise in advising on highly sensitive and unusual matters for public and private companies, and not-for-profit corporations (including universities, sports governing bodies, trade groups and charitable organizations). These include special committee investigations and other matters relating to ESG issues such as bribery, CEO activism, climate transition, conflicts of interest, corporate culture, cybersecurity, product safety and quality control, racial discrimination, sexual assault, and whistleblower protection.

Rebecca counsels U.S. public companies (including U.S. filers incorporated outside the U.S.) and foreign private issuers, private equity firms, portfolio and private companies, state-owned enterprises, professional services firms, institutional investors, financial market utilities and not-for-profit corporations, operating in a wide range of industries, at all stages of their life cycle, with respect to the full range of complex corporate governance, securities regulation and compliance issues and related disclosure, including board and committee fiduciary duties and protections, ESG and anti-ESG risk oversight, board leadership, composition and structure, board effectiveness, corporate culture, director independence, director elections, corporate governance policies and procedures, board evaluations, related party transactions, conflicts of interest and corporate opportunities, crisis preparedness and management, CEO transitions, executive and director compensation, shareholder engagement and activism, proxy advisory firm policies, takeover defenses, and compliance with applicable corporate laws, regulations and listing rules. She has extensive experience in a broad range of cross-border mergers and acquisitions and securities transactions, particularly multi-jurisdictional transactions requiring harmonization of U.S. and non-U.S. regimes, including those requiring innovative SEC relief. Almost two decades of mentorship by Weil legend and former firm chairman, the late Ira M. Millstein, helped hone Rebecca’s commercial and nuanced approach to client issues.

Rebecca regularly speaks and writes on ESG topics, including at events in the U.S., Europe and Asia sponsored by the American Bar Association, Society for Corporate Governance, the Practising Law Institute, The Conference Board and the U.S. State Department. She serves as Co-Chair of the International Law Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Corporate Governance Committee, and has lectured at the Yale School of Management and at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

In 2021, Rebecca was elected as a Fellow to the American College of Governance Counsel. In 2008, Rebecca was named a “Rising Star of Corporate Governance” by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management.

Rebecca is dual-qualified in New York and Australia. She has practiced corporate law since 2001.