News & Analysis as of

Confidential Information Whistleblower Awards

White & Case LLP

Major competition law changes – greater powers for the Czech NCA, clearer rules for fining associations, anonymous reporting of...

White & Case LLP on

Very soon, a long-awaited amendment to the Czech Act on the Protection of Competition will become law, implementing (after a long delay) the requirements of what is known as the ECN+ Directive (an EU directive designed to...more

Jackson Lewis P.C.

New Law Rewarding Whistleblowers May Lead to Substantial Increase in Whistleblower Claims

Jackson Lewis P.C. on

In conjunction with an omnibus spending bill, Congress passed in late December 2022, the Anti-Money Laundering Whistleblower Improvement Act, which on December 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law. This law permits...more

Rosenberg Martin Greenberg LLP

Don't Hold Your Breath: Understanding the IRS Whistleblower Reward Program Can Prevent Substantial Financial Consequences

While the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has long had a Whistleblower Office, the past few years have seen an uptick in the numbers of claims filed with the Office. In 2019 alone, according to an annual report from the...more

McDermott Will & Emery

Stats Show Active Tax Whistleblower Caseload

On January 6, 2020, the IRS Whistleblower Office released its annual report to Congress. The Office reported that it collected $616.8 million in fiscal year 2019 as a result of information provided by whistleblowers, out of...more

Bass, Berry & Sims PLC

SEC Grants Eligibility Waiver to Issue Whistleblower Award

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently awarded $3 million to joint whistleblowers despite concluding that the whistleblowers did not satisfy the technical eligibility requirements for receiving an award. See...more

NAVEX

Why You Shouldn’t Relax on Pretaliation—Even if Policymakers Do

NAVEX on

About two years ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made history when it brought the first “pretaliation” whistleblower enforcement action against KBR Inc., a technology and engineering firm in Houston. The...more

Allen Matkins

Has The SEC Paid Millions In Whistleblower Bounties To “Friends And Family”?

Allen Matkins on

Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced yet another large whistleblower bounty. See SEC Awards Nearly $1 Million to Whistleblower. This brings to $136 million the total amount awarded to date by...more

Baker Donelson

SEC, FINRA and the DOL Take Aim at Confidentiality Provisions in Firm Agreements

Baker Donelson on

On October 24, 2016, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) released an alert examining whistleblower rule compliance and the use of...more

Proskauer - Whistleblower Defense

Proskauer Joins Heads of SEC & OSHA Whistleblower Programs in Webinar

On September 27, 2016, Proskauer Partner Steven J. Pearlman, co-head of the Whistleblowing & Retaliation Practice Group, participated in a Bloomberg webinar with Jane Norberg, Acting Chief of the SEC Office of the...more

Burr & Forman

SEC Continues Crackdown on Whistleblower Restrictions: Calls Qui Tam Waivers "Targeting"

Burr & Forman on

The SEC announced its second enforcement action in a week against a company using severance or confidentiality agreements requiring employees to waive whistleblower bounties or their right to bring a qui tam action....more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

SEC Fines Companies for Anti-Whistleblower Language in Severance Agreements

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently announced the settlement of two proceedings regarding the SEC’s whistleblower protection framework, resulting in over $500,000 in penalties. Both of the companies were charged...more

WilmerHale

SEC Settlements Put Severance Agreements Under Increased Scrutiny

WilmerHale on

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced settlements with two companies for using severance agreements that allegedly violated Rule 21F-17. Rule 21F-17 provides that “[n]o person may take any action...more

Burr & Forman

SEC Fines Company for Agreements Restricting Whistleblowers

Burr & Forman on

The SEC has fined an Atlanta company $265,000 for using various severance agreements restricting whistleblower activities. The Dodd-Frank Act added ’34 Act § 21F encouraging whistleblower programs....more

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

SEC Bounty Hunters Take Heart: SEC Fines Company $265,000 for Using Severance Agreements That Provided a Waiver of any Monetary...

Wednesday, the SEC announced that an Atlanta-based company, BlueLinx Holdings, is settling charges that its severance agreements contained provisions that in its view might impede employees from communicating directly with...more

Littler

SEC Issues Cease-and-Desist Order Against Severance Agreement Clause Limiting Whistleblowers' Rights to Recover Bounty Awards

Littler on

On August 10, 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a cease-and-desist Order and imposed remedial sanctions against a publicly traded company for including language in its severance agreements requiring...more

Allen Matkins

SEC Condemns Breach Of Client Confidences While Offering Possible Bounties For Breaches

Allen Matkins on

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had “charged a California-based attorney and his wife with insider trading on confidential information obtained from a corporate client.” According to the...more

Proskauer - Whistleblowing & Retaliation

New York Lawyers Generally Cannot Seek Bounties Under Dodd-Frank, Says New York Ethics Committee

The New York County Lawyers Association Committee on Professional Ethics released Formal Opinion 746 on October 7, in which the Committee considered whether New York lawyers can ethically collect bounties for submitting...more

Allen Matkins

Secrets Must Be Kept Even When Not Privileged

Allen Matkins on

Yesterday, I discussed whether an SEC attorney might commit an ethical violation by encouraging an attorney to disclose her client’s confidences. That discussion was prompted by a recent posting by Lawrence A. West...more

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