Daniel Ahn, partner in the firm’s Regulatory and Investigations group and a former senior federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and Orange County, led the team’s defense of Bio-Edge, Inc., a small family-run business, and its owners, brothers Filip and Robert Sulc.
After multiple court battles, oral presentations, and letter briefs—in which Ahn and his team simplified the science and identified issues with respect to the government’s theory—the team was able to obtain a non-prosecution resolution for Bio-Edge and Filip and Robert Sulc. The non-prosecution agreement resulted in the withdrawal of all guilty pleas and secured dismissal of all criminal charges related to the Clean Water Act.
“I could not be happier for my dear friends and clients,” Ahn said. “The non-prosecution agreement—exceedingly rare in the environmental enforcement space, and rarer still after charges have already been filed—brings this federal criminal case to an end. Though the stakes could not have been higher, our clients were determined to fight the good fight. That they entrusted us with their lives and livelihood was the weightiest of responsibilities and the highest of honors. My heart is full and overflowing for the Bio-Edge family.”
“We are pleased to have this matter satisfactorily resolved,” said Filip Sulc, PhD, president and CEO of Bio-Edge. “We are proud of our over 30-year record of good standing with all local, state, and federal regulatory bodies. Robert, I, and the company as a whole look forward to continuing to provide the highest level of service to our customers. We are grateful to the Reed Smith legal team for helping us achieve this extraordinary result.”
Filip Sulc received his PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of California, Irvine. His scholarly work focuses on protein interactions with small molecules, their immobilization and characterization and protein crystallography, NMR, spectrophotometry, electrochemistry, and spectro-electrochemistry. He is a contributing author of nine publications and six presentations.
Robert Sulc also received his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, with a focus on polymers. Before joining his brother Filip at Bio-Edge, Robert was a post-doctoral Fellow in the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory’s Intel Molecules for Advanced Patterning (MAP) program; a Marie Curie International Training Network Fellow at the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany, for molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) related to molecular purifications for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs); and an EU research network project Fellow at the Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany, focusing on formulation and characterization of ultra-purification membranes. He is the author of six research articles and 18 presentations, and a co-inventor on one patent.
Ahn is a Chambers-ranked white-collar partner who previously served as Senior Litigation Counsel, Acting Chief, and Deputy Chief at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Ahn also served as a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington.
Ahn led a Reed Smith team comprised of counsel Mary Balaster and senior associate Brittany Shugart-Shiba, as well as late partner Todd Maiden and former associate Sara Eddy.