Question of the Week -- Are You Planning to Attend the OffshoreAlert Conference?

For the 16th year, OffshoreAlert is hosting its annual North American conference on Financial Intelligence & Investigations. The focus of The OffshoreAlert Conference is to bring a diverse group of senior financial industry participants together to learn and network. During the conference, the SEC’s Jane Norberg, the CFTC’s Christopher Ehrman and the IRS’s Lee Martin will join Constantine Cannon Partner Eric Havian for a panel entitled "Enriching Domestic & Foreign...

Securities Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the United States agency with primary responsibility for enforcing federal securities laws and preventing securities fraud. The SEC, which was created following the market crash of 1929, describes its mission as being to “protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.” Securities Fraud Topics How Does the SEC Enforce Federal Securities Laws? What Laws Does the SEC Enforce? Contact...

November 22, 2017

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today released the agency’s enforcement results for fiscal year (FY) 2017. In the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2017, the CFTC brought 49 enforcement-related actions, which included significant actions to root out manipulation and spoofing and to protect retail investors from fraud. The CFTC also pursued significant and complex litigation, including cases charging manipulation, spoofing, and unlawful use of customer funds. The CFTC...

Recent Government Enforcement

A number of government agencies regularly bring direct enforcement actions related to fraudulent schemes, including those involving various fraud against federal and state governments, investors, tax, and financial activity. Most of these government enforcement actions do not involve whistleblowers.  However, these enforcement activities provide some insight in to the government's priorities, and can provide models for the presentation of claims by whistleblowers. We invite you to explore this collection of...

Ponzi & Pyramid Schemes

What is a Ponzi Scheme? A standard Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment scheme in which an operator pays returns on investments from capital derived from new investors, rather than from legitimate investment profits. Ponzi scheme operators entice new investors with abnormally high short-term rates of return. The fraudster profits by either charging fees on the “investments,” or simply fleeing with investors’ funds. Ponzi schemes generally fall apart when there...

Misrepresentations in Sales of Securities and Commodities

The securities laws and the Commodity Exchange Act prohibit the use of fraud or deceit including obtaining money or property through material misstatements and omissions in the offer or sale of securities. Misrepresentations that lead to significant actual or potential investor harm are frequent targets of enforcement actions by the SEC and CFTC and can be the basis for whistleblower claims. The government is concerned about deception of investors in...

May 22, 2017

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) unanimously approved amendments to the CFTC’s Whistleblower Rules that will, among other things, strengthen the CFTC’s anti-retaliation protections for whistleblowers and enhance the process for reviewing whistleblower claims. Based on a reinterpretation of the CFTC’s anti-retaliation authority under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), the CFTC or the whistleblower may now bring an action against an employer for retaliation against a whistleblower. The amendments...

Our Team

Constantine Cannon's Whistleblower Team has extensive experience representing whistleblowers under the wide array of whistleblower rewards statutes and programs. These include the False Claims Acts (both federal and state); the SEC and CFTC Whistleblower Programs; and the whistleblower programs covering money laundering and sanctions violations, auto safety, tax fraud and various other areas of fraud and misconduct. We have a long and well-established track record of whistleblower successes, and substantial...

November 21, 2016

The CFTC released its annual enforcement results for FY 2016. The CFTC filed sixty-eight enforcement cases and achieved $1.29 billion in monetary sanctions ordered. CFTC also pursued litigation in over one hundred cases. In 2016 the CFTC also issued a whistleblower award of more than $10 million, the largest since the program’s inception in 2010. CFTC

In Their Own Words — Ehrman

-- “The Whistleblower Program is working.  My hope is that this multimillion dollar award will encourage others to come forward with information that will assist the Commission in protecting our markets.” Christopher Ehrman, the Director of the CFTC’s Whistleblower Office, on the agency's announcement of a $10 million whistleblower award, its third and largest award to date.  Click here for more.