July 30 Is National Whistleblower Appreciation Day -- Have You Thanked A Whistleblower Lately?
Posted 07/28/23
July 30 is National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. Thanks to Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), co-heads of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus, it is the tenth year in a row for this annual marker to celebrate whistleblowers and the critical role they play in protecting our health and well-being. In announcing their bipartisan resolution designating this special day, the senators...
Survey Says . . . Whistleblowers Are Key to Global Compliance
Posted 07/6/23
A crucial component of any business is managing compliance risk. An effective compliance program must include a clear and transparent path for whistleblowers to report risk while mitigating fears of retaliation. These are the key take-aways in this year’s 2023 Global compliance risk benchmark survey by KPMG and White & Case.¹
Based on the opinions of 201 senior decision-makers across 34 countries, the survey...
Constantine Cannon’s Marlene Koury and Chris McLamb in the LA Times Discussing the Importance of Whistleblowers to Prevent the Next OceanGate
Posted 06/29/23
Constantine Cannon whistleblower attorneys Marlene Koury and Chris McLamb are featured in the Los Angeles Times with an op-ed on the importance of whistleblowers to guard public safety in largely unregulated areas.
As Ms. Koury and Mr. McLamb explained, for those familiar with OceanGate — the private exploration company that facilitated the Titan submersible tour — the implosion of the vessel was not an...
Celebrating Whistleblowers on World Whistleblower Day
Posted 06/23/23
Today (June 23) is World Whistleblower Day. It was originally created in 2019 by a group of NGOs to raise global awareness of the critical role whistleblowers play in combatting fraud and corruption. One of the principal groups behind the special day, and the one that promotes it the most widely, is Transparency International. It is the independent, not-for-profit NGO dedicated to stopping corruption and...
A Whistleblower Warned Missing Experimental Ship Was Not Safe for Titanic Depths
Posted 06/21/23
On June 18, 2023, a submersible ship lost communications and went missing in the Atlantic Ocean on its mission to the Titanic wreckage with four tourists and a pilot onboard. The vessel, named “Titan,” was constructed and operated by OceanGate, an extreme marine exploration company.
Five years before Titan went missing, whistleblower David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations, claims he...
Honoring the Passing of Legendary Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg
Posted 06/20/23
“How can you measure the jeopardy that I'm in - whether it's 10 years, 20 years, 115 years, or other ludicrous amounts like that - to the penalty that has been paid already by 50,000 American families here and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese families.” -Daniel Ellsberg, NPR archived recording.
Daniel Ellsberg, freedom of the press advocate, anti-nuclear activist, and a 2021 Whistleblower of the Year...
Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects After the Fact Excuses
Posted 06/2/23
In a major victory for honest citizens, on June 1, 2023, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Seventh Circuit’s decision in United States ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu Inc. Constantine Cannon whistleblower attorneys Eric Havian, Michael Ronickher, Ari Yampolsky, and Noah Brecker-Redd had filed an amicus brief on behalf of Senator Charles Grassley, the champion of the FCA, urging the Court to reverse this...
It is the largest award ever made to a whistleblower on record under any of the ever-expanding list of whistleblower rewards programs. $279 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "to a whistleblower whose information and assistance led to the successful enforcement of SEC and related actions." That is pretty much all the SEC disclosed in announcing the award because of the agency's strong...
"Fraud by the Numbers" - Constantine Cannon Whistleblower Attorneys Contribute to Fraud Overview
Posted 02/8/23
Constantine Cannon attorneys Mary Inman and Elizabeth “Liz” Soltan worked on a 2022 Taxpayers Against Fraud article series called “Fraud by the Numbers,” which has now been released as a compilation. You can read the full report here.
Taxpayers Against Fraud, a membership organization of whistleblower attorneys and others, is dedicated to defending and empowering whistleblowers who expose fraud on the...