Whistleblower Insider Blog

Fiscal Year 2022 Sets New Records for CFTC Whistleblower Program

Fiscal year 2022 was sure to be a record-breaking year for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Whistleblower Reward Program, as it started with a $200 million whistleblower award – an award so large that Congressional intervention was needed.  The CFTC Whistleblower Program’s annual report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2022 confirms this, reporting more than $203 million in total awards. Created by the

SEC Whistleblower Program 2022 Annual Report Shows Continued Strength of Program

Last week the SEC Whistleblower Office released its 2022 Annual Report, with office chief Creola Kelly saying that the SEC Whistleblower Program is “effectively incentivizing whistleblowers to make the often difficult decision to come forward with information about potential securities-law violations.” The data confirms that whistleblowers are making a big difference in protecting the markets and investing...

New York Times Covers “Cash Monster” of Risk Adjustment Fraud, Featuring Cases Initiated by Constantine Cannon Clients

Kaiser whistleblower Dr. James Taylor got the headline on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times: “The cash monster was insatiable.” The article, subtitled How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions, highlights that nearly half of the Medicare beneficiaries in the U.S. are now enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs. Federal payments to Medicare Advantage insurers make up a correspondingly increasing share...

America’s Whistleblower Programs are a Beacon for International Whistleblowers

Constantine Cannon whistleblower partner Mary Inman and associate Liz Soltan wrote a guest post for the Taxpayers Against Fraud blog about the role of international whistleblowers in providing an increasing number of tips under the various American whistleblower reward programs. The U.S. leads the world in enlisting whistleblowers as force-multipliers to help law enforcement and regulators detect and root out fraud...

Whistleblower Rules of the Road

Whistleblower associate Liz Soltan wrote on the Taxpayers Against Fraud blog about the need for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s whistleblower program to keep up with innovation in the auto industry. The NHTSA whistleblower program offers awards to auto industry insiders who blow the whistle on safety problems with motor vehicles. Constantine Cannon represented Kim Gwang-ho, who lives in...

The Scale of Crypto Fraud

Whistleblower associate Liz Soltan, along with Alex Cala of Taxpayers Against Fraud, recently wrote about the massive scale of cryptocurrency fraud on the TAF blog. As use of crypto has increased, so too have scams. Between Jan. 31, 2021 and March 31, 2022, over 46,000 people made reports to the FTC about losing money in crypto fraud, with losses totaling over $1 billion. And that’s just victims who chose to make...

Book Review: "Money Men," by Dan McCrum

When in 2014, Dan McCrum, a bank analyst turned investigative journalist, received a tip about “German gangsters” running a company that advertised itself as the German PayPal, he could not have imagined that his reporting would allow him to expose the biggest corporate scandal in post-war Germany. Although McCrum’s book, Money Men may read like a gripping crime drama, it is a meticulously-documented...

Crypto projects are toying with public funds. The False Claims Act will be a powerful tool in holding them to account

Last month, the Fairfax County Retirement System shared that they will be putting $70 million of their $6.8 billion fund into two crypto yield farming funds. In other words, pension money that allows teachers, firefighters, and police officers to retire will be invested into volatile digital tokens known as yield-farming projects. Yield-farming projects offer yields that are significantly higher than those...

Jury Finds Eli Lilly Cheated Medicaid in Case Highlighting Legal Battle Over False Claims Act Intent Standard

Constantine Cannon whistleblower lawyers Marlene Koury and Leah Judge were published in Law360 on the verdict in favor of a whistleblower against Eli Lilly, and what that case says about legal developments in the interpretation of the False Claims Act since the Seventh Circuit’s SuperValu decision. This post is an adaptation of that article.

In August, a Chicago jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern...

Telehealth Boomed During the Pandemic - and so Did Telehealth Fraud

Prior to the pandemic, telehealth was basically nonexistent, with one study clocking the percentage of “virtual” doctors’ visits before Covid-19 at zero percent. At the time, America’s largest insurer, Medicare, only covered telemedicine in limited circumstances that usually still involved a visit to a healthcare facility. Medicare’s coverage limitations demonstrated the Department of Health and Human...