Author: Young Law Group

Whistleblower Protections Back in the Senate The bipartisan bill promoting whistleblower protections for individuals reporting antitrust violations, the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act (“CAARA”), is back in the Senate. The law is co-sponsored by Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont). On November 2nd, S. 807 advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the...

Whistleblower Amendments Proposed Senator Grassley has proposed 15 amendments to the Senate bill for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Two of those amendments are important to whistleblowers, so we are going to examine them in more detail here. Amendment #1 from Grassley is intended to unify the tax treatment of whistleblower awards. The amendment...

SEC Whistleblowers: Technical violation or substantial damages? One of the central questions that we ask in the evaluation of information from potential whistleblowers is whether there is real and actual harm as a result of the company or individual breaking the law. In other words, is it merely a technical violation of the law or...

We wrote a few months back about the creation of the Cyber Unit and Retail Strategy Task Force at the SEC. In the Keynote Speech at the Securities Enforcement Forum, Co-Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement Stephanie Avakian provided additional information about the priorities of these units and the need for them to exist....

One Step Closer for Whistleblower Protections in Australia Australia appears to have moved one step closer to adopting whistleblower rewards and additional retaliation protections with a report last month by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. The report’s main recommendation is for Australia to establish a Whistleblower Protection Authority to support whistleblowers,...

Bribery Investigation Settled for Almost $1 Billion The United States has concluded its third-largest FCPA enforcement action with a settlement of $965 million in total penalties (including Dutch and Swedish penalties) by Telia Company AB and its subsidiary, Coscom. The Acting U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York called it “one of the...

Whistleblower Contracts Clarified by IRS Earlier this year, the IRS Whistleblower Office and its Director Lee Martin issued guidelines for the use of 6103(n) contracts with tax whistleblowers. This has been a somewhat controversial area in the past, since it requires balancing the privacy rights of the taxpayer. In favor of more IRS-whistleblower communication, Senator...