When the CFTC announced its final whistleblower rules yesterday, it answered many questions about how the new CFTC whistleblower program will work. David Meister, the CFTC’s Director of the Division of Enforcement, provided this summary according to the unofficial transcript our firm prepared of yesterday’s CFTC public meeting: The Commission…
The final whistleblower rules of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are being announced now at a CFTC open meeting. Like the SEC, the CFTC has rejected any provision that whistleblowers be required first to report internally the violations in question, but will treat internal reporting as a “positive” consideration…
When qui tam whistleblower cases under the False Claims Act are “declined” by the Department of Justice, the whistleblower or “relator” is authorized to pursue the case on the government’s behalf. The DOJ statistics below show that these declined cases have generated more than $97 million in recoveries for taxpayers…
The IRS emphasis on international and offshore tax violations continues. Today, the government made clear that U.S. prosecutions for cross-border tax evasion did not end with the 2009 landmark UBS settlement, which followed a tax whistleblower’s approaching U.S officials. The Justice Department announced today that three more former Credit Suisse…
Too often missing in today’s discussions of Dodd-Frank’s one-year anniversary is appreciation of efforts by CFTC and SEC leadership to build from scratch the effective new whistleblower programs mandated by Dodd-Frank. With scant resources, each agency is creating an essential mechanism to protect today’s investors from the next fraudulent scheme.…
The SEC Whistleblower Program encompasses not only classic securities violations, but also violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), a topic we have followed closely. This past week, the SEC filed and settled an FCPA case against Armor Holdings, Inc., and collected more than $5.6 million, while the Department…
The suspense over the final SEC whistleblower rules ended with the SEC’s release of its final whistleblower rules last week. The CFTC is to follow suit soon in announcing its own commodities whistleblower rules. We have followed the SEC rules’ development, after being part of the small group of pro-whistleblower…
Last week the government’s criminal trial of former GlaxoSmithKline vice president and associate general counsel Lauren Stevens ended abruptly, as the judge found no basis to allow the case to go to a jury. Prosecutors had charged that she obstructed justice and made false statements to cover up the company’s…
False Claims Act history repeated itself today. Since Congress acted decisively in 1986 to breathe life into the False Claims Act through amendments intended to expand use of the nation’s major anti-fraud whistleblower law, the Supreme Court and some lower courts have regularly intervened by imposing their own views on…
As has been reported today in Tax Notes and CCH, my colleague Richard Rubin and I addressed the IRS at its hearing yesterday on the proposed IRS Whistleblower rules. We were able to speak for roughly one-third of the hearing. We focused on fundamentals. We urged that Treasury and the…