Member Profile

David M. Mizrachi is the senior partner of MDU Legal in the Republic of Panama. He is a United States trained attorney (BA with Departmental Honors, University of Pennsylvania; JD cum laude, Tulane Law School), who is admitted to practice law in Panama and the State of Florida (State and Federal Courts).

A substantial part of David’s international practice is devoted to asset tracing and recovery. He assisted a foreign court appointed receiver in recovering Panama based assets procured through a Ponzi scheme and has served notice of proceedings and procured evidence on behalf of foreign government agencies in cases related to investment and securities fraud. David’s legal actions allowed a foreign investor to recover monies paid into a Panama based boiler room securities operation. He also facilitated the recovery of a Panama registered vessel given as a guarantee to a failed Caribbean bank. His firm has recently obtained several ex parte asset freeze orders from Panamanian courts and recently obtained an ex parte court order which required a Panamanian Corporation to disclose its beneficial owners. His firm also obtained an ex parte suspension order which halted direct and indirect trading of the stock of a company and the exercise of any voting rights related to its shares pending an action to determine the ownership of part of that company’s shares. Recently his firm obtained an ex parte judicial order suspending the effects of the registration of the minutes of a corporation which had purportedly changed its board of directors without shareholder consent. He routinely assists foreign firms and governmental agencies with their legal needs in Panama and coordinates multinational litigation efforts on behalf of his local clients.

Mr. Mizrachi has served in court or as a private expert on Panamanian law in cases pending in New York, Florida, Indiana, Washington State, Bermuda, Israel and the United Kingdom. He has recently spoken on asset tracing and recovery matters in London, Geneva, Washington, Costa Rica, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. His firm is the Panamanian member of International Law Firms, ICC FraudNet and Trace International. David is the author of the Panama Section of the FraudNet Compendium on Asset Tracing and Recovery (Eric Schmidt Verlag, 2010). He is a certified translator (Spanish/English/Spanish). He enjoys reading about enology, history and biblical archaeology.