Archive

ITG – Securities violations (30% SEC whistleblower award)

Constantine Cannon’s team secured another multi-million-dollar SEC whistleblower award for an anonymous whistleblower whose original information and assistance led to an enforcement action against brokerage firm ITG.  The SEC has repeatedly fined ITG in recent years, including for violations related to the firm’s dark pool, POSIT.  A dark pool is an alternate trading system that is supposed to allow investors to place buy and sell orders without alerting predatory traders who can manipulate prices.  ITG told its customers that they could trade in POSIT anonymously and confidentially, but the SEC twice concluded this was false.  The SEC awarded our client 30 percent of the recovery, the maximum amount allowed under the SEC Whistleblower Program.  For more information, see Constantine Cannon Client Receives Maximum Award for Blowing the Whistle on ITG

Securities Fraud ($1.7 million SEC whistleblower award)

Constantine Cannon’s whistleblower team secured a $1.7 million award for an SEC whistleblower client.  The client, a former company insider, provided extensive and ongoing assistance to the SEC in its investigation of a major international company.  Significantly, Constantine Cannon convinced the SEC to increase our client’s award, acknowledging not only our client’s significant investigative assistance but also the risks the client took to alert investors to the misconduct and the justified fear of retaliation the client faced as an employee of the company.  The SEC increases a whistleblower’s award in fewer than 7% of cases.  See Constantine Cannon Client Scores SEC Whistleblower Win for more information.

LA Dep’t. of Water & Power — Government Contract Fraud/Utility Overcharges ($224 million).

Four of our whistleblower attorneys led the representation of whistleblower Sam Barakat, as well as the County of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and other government agencies in a whistleblower action against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The plaintiffs alleged that the DWP had overcharged these schools and other public agencies for electric power over a ten-year period of time. The case involved a ground-breaking legal theory that had never been tested in court. It also involved dissecting elaborate cost accounting to demonstrate government customers had been overcharged relative to the true cost of service. Following a two-month trial, a verdict was returned against the DWP for $224 million. See LA Times, UT San Diego, and National Law Journal for more.

Visa/MasterCard — Antitrust Violations ($3 billion).

Two of our whistleblower lawyers were on the lead counsel team representing Wal-Mart, Sears, Safeway and a class of roughly 5 million U.S. merchants in this antitrust class action alleging various forms of misconduct by Visa and MasterCard in their rules governing the use and marketing of Visa/MasterCard branded credit cards and debit cards. After winning summary judgment on a majority of the claims in this action and on the eve of trial, the parties settled the case with the plaintiff merchants recovering more than $3 billion in damages and injunctive relief valued by the court at tens of billions of dollars. This landmark victory remains one of the largest antitrust settlements in U.S. history. See NY Times for more.