Crashing Waves, representing disaster relief fraud and whistleblower retaliation

Whistleblower Retaliation: A Turning Point in 2016?

The Prevalence of Whistleblower Retaliation The prevalence of retaliation by corporations against whistleblowers has been well documented. Not only does it serve to punish those who come forward, but it has a chilling effect on other employees who might speak out against wrongful conduct. Employees in these companies quickly learn that the policies protecting whistleblowers...

100 Dollar Bills representing settlement and False Claims Act

False Claims Act Yields $519 Million for Whistleblowers in FY2016

False Claims Act Helps Recover $4.7 Billion The Justice Department announced the third highest annual recovery in the history of the False Claims Act yesterday – $4.7 billion for the federal government for fiscal year 2016 (ending Sept. 30th). Whistleblowers received awards of $519 million for their assistance recovering $2.9 billion – more than half...

5 Areas Where President Trump Will Pay Whistleblowers

President Trump Will Pay Whistleblowers There has already been much commentary on the impact that President Trump and his administration will have on government enforcement efforts. Trump has made it clear that he intends to streamline government regulation of business in order to spur the economy. He’s also promised to dismantle Dodd-Frank, the law that...

Beige Volkswagen Beetle, representing the $4 Billion Fine for Volkswagen and NHTSA Whistleblower Rules

One Year Later, No NHTSA Whistleblower Rules Announcement

No NHTSA Whistleblower Rules Yet When Congress passed the Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act as part of the FAST Act last December, it gave the Transportation Department 18 months to implement the regulations for the new whistleblower statute. A year later, there has been no public notice soliciting feedback on the new rules. On one...

Man Wearing Black Denim Pants With Carrying Hammer on Holster, representing permanent whistleblower protections for contractors

Permanent Whistleblower Protections for Federal Contractors

Permanent Whistleblower Protections A bill sponsored by Senator Claire McCaskill to make permanent a pilot program applying whistleblower protections to contractors, subcontractors, grant recipients, and subgrantees has been passed by the House and Senate. It applies the program’s protection from retaliation to nearly all civilian employees except for the intelligence community. The pilot program was...

Courthouse with columns, representing Department of Justice (DOJ) and SEC Enforcement

Supreme Court Upholds Insider Trading Conviction in Salman

The Supreme Court issued its decision in Salman v. United States today, the first insider trading case to reach the Justices in more than 20 years. The Supreme Court upheld the standard from its prior ruling, Dirks v. SEC, 463 U.S. 646 (1983) and concluded that a tipper personally benefits from a gift of confidential information to a...

Interior of United States Capitol rotunda with ornamental dome, an image representing US courts and Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Supreme Court: District Court has Discretion on False Claims Act Seal Violations

The Supreme Court upheld a verdict for two whistleblowers in its opinion today in State Farm v. U.S. ex rel. Rigsby despite a violation of the False Claims Act seal requirement by their former lawyer in the case. The Supreme Court agreed with the Fifth Circuit and District Court that the text of the False Claims Act does not...

Close-up Photo of the Stock Market, representing IRS Whistleblower Complaints

SEC Pursues Weatherford: A Case of Accounting Fraud

The SEC has announced a $140 million settlement with Weatherford International over the use of deceptive income tax accounting to inflate its earnings. Weatherford is one of the largest oil and natural gas companies internationally and is now a repeat player in settling government investigations. They were fined a few years back by the SEC...

Person Holding a Black Digital Tablet, representing Fake News on Stocks

The SEC Enforcement Director Speaks on the SEC Whistleblower Program

The SEC Enforcement Director, Andrew Ceresney, spoke yesterday about the SEC whistleblower program at the Taxpayers Against Fraud Conference in Washington, D.C. There’s some great information for whistleblowers. Before we identify the takeaways for securities whistleblowers, we thought it worth taking a moment to speak about Taxpayers Against Fraud, an organization where our whistleblower attorneys...

Selective Focus Photography of Wheat Field, representing Commodities for the CFTC and the CFTC Whistleblower Program

CFTC Proposes Whistleblower Program Changes

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register related to the CFTC whistleblower awards process. The proposed amendments to the regulations on first glance are pro-whistleblower and would be a welcome improvement and clarification to the program’s current regulations. We’re about to head out for...

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