This archive includes posts from our “Top Ten” series, in which the Whistleblower Insider blog reviews notable government enforcement actions and whistleblower news – not always in groups of ten. Return to:
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...
Consistent with the trend in prior years, the bulk of the Justice Department’s fraud and false claims recoveries in 2019 stemmed from healthcare fraud matters. And again, most of the funds recovered arose from cases originated by whistleblowers under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. Not surprisingly, seven of the top ten spots in our list involved false claims act lawsuits against drug companies...
Top Ten Financial and Healthcare Fraud Prison Sentences of 2019
Posted 01/23/20
Financial and healthcare fraud schemes can result not just in civil investigations and liability, but also in prison time for the individuals involved. In 2019, the Department of Justice obtained substantial prison sentences in numerous cases involving healthcare and financial frauds, helping to bring justice to the patients, investors, or individuals harmed by criminal fraudsters. Many of the fraudulent...
Between Greta Thunberg's "Climate Strike" mass protests, the on-going saga over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the hoopla over plant-based diets, and record temperatures and ice melts – the environment was on everyone's mind in 2019. Whistleblowers can be eligible for financial rewards for reporting environmental violations in a number of different ways, and our review below features many recoveries – including...
Tax fraud and tax evasion persist each year in various forms and whistleblowers have been at the forefront in combatting entities and individuals cheating the system. Under the IRS Whistleblower Reward Program, whistleblowers who bring information regarding tax fraud to light that results in a recover of over $2 million can be eligible for a reward between 15 to 30% of the government’s recovery. The IRS...
This year, the federal government recovered billions of dollars under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which prohibits the payment of bribes to foreign officials for the purposes of furthering business interests. The anti-corruption actions by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission concerned almost every continent and covered a variety of misconduct. Below, we’ve gathered...
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,...
Top Ten Federal False Claims Act Recoveries of 2018
Posted 01/28/19
The federal False Claims Act, under which whistleblowers can bring claims to report fraud and misconduct in government contracts and programs, is the foundation of the Department of Justice's fraud recovery and the U.S. whistleblower reward system. In 2018, the U.S. recovered over $2 billion from defendants who sought to cheat the system.
The top FCA settlements for calendar year 2018, based on the amount of the...