THANK YOU FOR VOTING FOR THE 2019 WHISTLEBLOWER OF THE YEAR. POLLS ARE NOW CLOSED AND WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT Anonymous CIA Whistleblower on Ukraine IS OUR 2019 WINNER!
Whistleblower Insider wants to hear from you on who should be honored as our 2019 Whistleblower of the Year. As in past years, we are especially interested in those individuals who best encapsulate the qualities of the typical whistleblower...
UK Parliament Introduces Bill to Establish Office of the Whistleblower
Posted 01/29/20
A bill introduced in the UK Parliament seeks to establish an independent Office of the Whistleblower, which would build upon the current statutory framework and improve whistleblower protections and support.
The Office of the Whistleblower Bill, introduced on January 28th by Baroness Susan Kramer, incorporates the recommendations and guidance offered in the 2019 report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on...
Constantine Cannon Whistleblower Team’s Top-Ten “Staff Picks” of 2019
Posted 01/27/20
From cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, and “big data” to private-equity backed healthcare, private detention facilities, and the essential whistleblower experience – your prolific and relentless CC WB bloggers have chosen some of their favorite 2019 posts (and one from 2018) – don’t miss these insider-favorite gems!
Your worst nightmare – private data exposed to the unscrupulous – could be curbed...
2019 was another busy year for the SEC and CFTC. Once again, the SEC netted hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and fines from companies and individuals accused of defrauding investors, breaching fiduciary duties, and violating the securities laws. And that’s in addition to the SEC’s robust FCPA enforcement in 2019. Meanwhile, the CFTC continued to root out market manipulators and other fraudsters...
Question of the Week: How Badly do you Want to Stop Animal Trafficking?
Posted 01/17/20
Last week, the Department of Justice indicted a New York man, Christopher Casacci, for illegally importing and selling dozens of African wild cats. Doing business as “ExoticCubs.com,” Casacci brought into the United States and sold dozens of caracals (Caracal caracal) and servals (Leptailurus serval). Caracals, known as the “desert lynx,” are wild cats native to Africa, and grow to approximately 45 pounds....
DOJ 2019 Fraud Statistics Tell Story of the Critical Role of Whistleblowers
Posted 01/13/20
The Department of Justice released its annual report of civil recoveries for fraud and false claims against the U.S., showing recoveries over $3 billion in settlements and judgments for the fiscal year ending September 2019. The data released by DOJ show the critical role that whistleblowers play in securing these recoveries for the government: of the $3 billion recovered, over $2.2 billion – 72% – was recovered...
2019 was another strong year for whistleblowers, who once again collectively recovered billions of dollars for the government and hundreds of millions of dollars in whistleblower rewards through their filing of lawsuits under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. Whistleblowers this past year also continued to secure financial rewards under the Dodd-Frank SEC Whistleblower and CFTC Whistleblower programs,...
Federal Audit Reveals Billions of Dollars in Medicare Advantage Overpayments
Posted 12/20/19
A new government report reveals what whistleblowers and their counsel have known for some time: the Medicare Advantage program is vulnerable to fraud committed by unscrupulous private health insurance companies, as well as their owners, vendors, affiliates, and even some doctors. These bad actors make patients enrolled in MA plans appear sicker than they actually are in order to increase their corporate profits. ...
Why Whistleblowers Should be Honorary Members of the new Antitrust Strike Force
Posted 12/20/19
When our firm represented a whistleblower who brought down the largest oil companies in Korea for bid-rigging, resulting in fines and penalties of over $360 million, we did not imagine the case would play a role in launching a new initiative, the Justice Department’s Procurement Collusion Strike Force. The Strike Force is an interagency partnership tasked with rooting out collusive schemes like bid-rigging. The new...