Constantine Cannon Whistleblower Team’s Top-Ten “Staff Picks” of 2019

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!

1. 1. Your worst nightmare – private data exposed to the unscrupulous – could be curbed by effective whistleblowers with information about cybersecurity breaches at companies with government contracts or that conceal serious cybersecurity events from investors and the public. We discuss how, in “Blowing the Whistle on Data Breaches and Cybersecurity Flaws” (June 2019)
   2. Decades of experience yield five essential questions every would-be whistleblower should consider, in “How to be a Whistleblower” (July 2019).
   3. Is private equity a boon or the bane of companies with government business? Investors typically are shielded from corporate liability, but private equity investors who take an active management role in unlawful business activities might share in False Claims Act liability.  Two cases so find in the highly regulated healthcare field.  While private equity provides much needed capital, it sometimes results in a push for profits over patient care, with physicians and nurses caught in the middle.  We explain, in “Florida Pharma Whistleblower Case Results in FCA Settlement by Private Equity Firm.” (September 2019)
   4. Who will speak for them? Taxpayers contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the exploding industry of for-profit correctional companies.  Perhaps only whistleblowers with inside information can expose widespread fraud and abuse behind locked doors.  We tackle the topic of disturbing and abusive conditions at private-contractor-run immigration and prisoner detention facilities in our poignant post, “Immigration Detention Facilities Continue to Pose Fraud Risks.” (May 2019).
   5. Those standing for truth in the face of hostility will recognize the experience of climate-change whistleblower Joel Clement, a former director in the U.S. Interior Department. Clement is an inspiring example of dedication to public service and speaking truth to power.  This two part interview from 2018 sneaks on to our 2019 list because of its exceptionally thoughtful description of his first-hand experience as a whistleblower, advice to others, and vision for what comes next: Whistleblower of the Year Candidate Joel Clement, Part One and Part Two. (February 2018)
   6. Whistleblower programs sometimes discourage cases based on public information. But what if the public information is “big data” that, with special expertise, reveals the fraud?  Courts increasingly recognize that expert data analytics, even of publicly available information, can be a predicate to a whistleblower case.  Read about this emerging frontier in “Is Data the Future of Whistleblowing?” (August 2019)
   7. “The CFTC Wants You!” – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission alerted the public that it needs whistleblowers to provide information about difficult-to-detect bribes and corruption of foreign officials. The CFTC regulates and enforces violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in relation to commodities prices, securing business in certain regulated trading activities, benchmark manipulations, and other activity.  We ask, “what are you waiting for?” in “Calling all FCPA Whistleblowers — The CFTC Wants You!” (June 2019)
   8. Where the hunters meet the hunted: 2019’s OffshoreAlert conference again brought together offshore business, government enforcement, asset recovery companies, and whistleblowers. Cryptocurrency was the unifying theme with its novel application to traditional enforcement areas of tax avoidance, money-laundering, bribery, scam initial-coin-offerings (ICOs), pump and dump schemes, Ponzi schemes, and good old-fashioned theft.  For a whistleblower attorney’s inside report, check out: “The Latest on Cryptocurrency, Offshore Tax Avoidance and Money-Laundering, and Whistleblowing: A Report from OffshoreAlert Miami 2019.” (May 2019)
   9. When the federal government purchases goods and services, it becomes vulnerable to numerous hidden frauds, including defective pricing, violation of set-aside programs, supply chain risks such as Trade Agreements Act (TAA) violations, kickbacks, and bid-rigging. The illegal pilfering of taxpayer dollars is limited only by fraudsters’ creativity . . . and whistleblowers!  We explain the indispensability of whistleblowers in exposing misconduct in “Fraud in GSA Contracts: How to Report it Under the False Claims Act for a Whistleblower Reward” (May 2019)
   10. Telecommunications companies draw from a massive pot of money under a federal program to provide low-income phone services, telecommunications to schools, libraries, to high-cost areas, and for healthcare support to rural areas. Read how the Universal Service Fund is a magnet for fraud in “Whistleblowers Needed to Stop Secret Kickbacks, Bribes, Overcharging, and False Costs in E-Rate, Lifeline, Connect America, and Rural Healthcare programs.” (June 2019)

Read More:

• See all of our Top Ten Lists
• I think I have a whistleblower case
• The Constantine Cannon Whistleblower Lawyer Team
• Whistleblower FAQs

Tagged in: Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity and Data Breaches, FCA Federal, FCPA, Importance of Whistleblowers, Money Laundering, Pharma Fraud, Tax Fraud, Top 10, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,