Legal Blog
SEC Has Recovered Over $1 Billion Due to Whistleblower Tips
Over the past week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued total rewards of over $20 million to three SEC whistleblowers. As a result, SEC enforcement actions involving whistleblowers have now recovered more than $1 billion in financial remedies...
SEC Cyber Unit Files First Action to Halt ICO Fraud PlexCoin
The SEC today announced an enforcement action against the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) by PlexCoin. The SEC obtained a freeze on the purportedly $15 million in investor funds raised by PlexCoin from thousands of U.S. and international investors since August. According...
Evaluating Cryptocurrencies for Potential Whistleblower Cases
Cryptocurrency, led by bitcoin, has become a hot topic in the mainstream media recently. Both the CME and Nasdaq have announced plans to introduce trading in bitcoin futures. And the investing community continues to be split between those who believe it is the future...
Collected Proceeds Debate Continues in IRS Whistleblower Cases and Congress
The Justice Department has appealed a decision by the U.S. Tax Court last year to provide an IRS whistleblower reward based upon a criminal fine and civil forfeitures. The Government's appeal to the D.C. Circuit attempts to reverse a favorable decision for...
The Annual CFTC Whistleblower Report for 2017
The CFTC has also issued its annual report to Congress on the Dodd-Frank Act whistleblower program during Fiscal Year 2017. The CFTC did not issue any whistleblower awards last year. However, it did amend the whistleblower rules and regulations through a period of...
SEC Issues Annual Whistleblower Report for 2017
The annual SEC whistleblower report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2017 has been released. It provides information and data about the activities of the SEC Whistleblower Office (referred to in the report as OWB) from October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017. Over the year...
Wisconsin False Claims Act Repeal Costs State $11 Million
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has estimated that the state of Wisconsin gave up $11 million when it weakened the Wisconsin False Claims Act and then repealed it as part of the 2015-2017 budget process. The Federal False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729...
SEC Enforcement Division Issues Annual Report on FY2017
This week, the SEC Enforcement Division issued its annual report on its enforcement actions in Fiscal Year 2017 and its priorities for the future. The SEC whistleblower office will put out a separate report, but the enforcement division noted that the SEC reviewed...
Senate Considering Antitrust Whistleblower Protections Again
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...
IRS LB&I Now Has 24 Issues for Tax Examinations
The IRS Large Business & International Division (LB&I) is launching eleven compliance campaigns to target potential tax issues at the nearly 300,000 taxpayers within its jurisdiction. When a regulator announces that it will spend resources for investigation...
Grassley Proposes Whistleblower Amendments to Senate’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
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...
Have Investors Been Harmed?
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...
DOJ Announces Largest Hospice Fraud Settlement Ever – $75 Million
The Justice Department announced the resolution of a False Claims Act lawsuit with a $75 million settlement by Chemed Corporation and various wholly-owned subsidiaries, including Vitas Hospice Services. The settlement is the largest amount ever recovered under the...
Cyber Unit and Retail Strategy Task Force Priorities According to SEC Co-Director of Enforcement Division
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...
SEC Charges Rio Tinto with Accounting Fraud
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint in the Southern District of New York alleging violations of the Securities Act and the Exchange Act for an accounting fraud related to the valuation of a coal business in Mozambique, Africa. Rio Tinto...
Australia Joint Committee Recommends More Whistleblower Protections
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...
Telia Settles FCPA Bribery Investigation for $965 Million
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...
IRS Clarifies 6103(n) Whistleblower Contracts
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...
Recap of CFTC Whistleblower Program in FY 2017
We are approaching the end of the U.S. Government's 2017 fiscal year on September 30th. We haven't written too much about the CFTC whistleblower program this year because there have only been a handful of newsworthy events in the enforcement of the Commodity Exchange...
U.S. Takes on Disaster Fraud and ICO Fraud
Disaster-relief fraud and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) fraud are two areas that have been making headlines recently. Based on communications reported in the media from government agencies, both areas will be the subject of government scrutiny in the next few years....