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Articles & Perspectives

With more than a century of combined experience prosecuting some of the most complex securities frauds in history, our team possesses expansive knowledge on topics ranging from legal and regulatory frameworks, corporate governance and ethics, to auditing reform, in-house compliance systems and internal investigations. As a result, we are regularly called upon both to author and comment on sophisticated topics for major media and, as bloggers for our own audience, to examine top-of-mind issues with a fresh and substantive perspective.

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April 16, 2014
OIG Report Praises SEC Whistleblower Program
Labaton Sucharow
The internal watchdog for federal government agencies, including the SEC, is the Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”), which conducts audits and investigations of the SEC to “promote integrity, economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the Commission’s programs and operations.” In keeping with this mission, the OIG has issued its first audit report on the SEC...
Articles & Perspectives
April 14, 2014
SEC Orders Show Importance of Complying with Whistleblower Program Rules
Labaton Sucharow
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the SEC recently denied two individuals’ applications for whistleblower awards because they had not met the requirements of the SEC Whistleblower Program rules. In the first case, an anonymous woman claimed that she had provided information that helped the SEC build its sub-prime mortgage fraud case against several...
Articles & Perspectives
April 11, 2014
Senator Grassley Urges IRS to Strengthen Whistleblower Program
Labaton Sucharow
Both in our practice and on our blog, we typically focus on the SEC Whistleblower Program, which seeks actionable intelligence about possible violations of the federal securities laws. But, the SEC Whistleblower Program is only one of several federal programs that seek to leverage whistleblower information to detect and deter wrongdoing. One of the other...
Articles & Perspectives
April 10, 2014
SEC Announces Additional Payout to Whistleblower
Labaton Sucharow
The SEC announced on Friday that it made an additional payout of $150,000 to the recipient of the first monetary award under the SEC Whistleblower Program, after successfully collecting more sanctions from one of the defendants in the action. With that additional payout, the whistleblower – who is entitled to receive up to 30% of...
Articles & Perspectives
April 8, 2014
SEC Officials Provide Promising Reports on the SEC Whistleblower Program
Labaton Sucharow
One of the questions I’m most frequently asked by clients, other lawyers and friends is “what’s happening inside the SEC with respect to the whistleblower program?” Recently, several top SEC officials have provided insight onto this question – and their comments indicate that the SEC continues to see the SEC Whistleblower Program as a powerful...
Articles & Perspectives
April 4, 2014
High-Frequency Trading: Further Thoughts on the “Flash Boys” Debate
Labaton Sucharow
The firestorm sparked by Michael Lewis’ new book on high-frequency trading, Flash Boys, raged on this week, with both opponents and supporters of high-frequency trading entering the fray. In a heated debate on CNBC’s Power Lunch, Lewis and the founder of IEX – a new exchange designed to limit high-frequency trading – repeated the charge...
Articles & Perspectives
April 2, 2014
High-Frequency Trading: Whistleblower Aids Investigations
Labaton Sucharow
Posted April 2, 2014 The buzz on Wall Street this week has been all about high-frequency trading and Michael Lewis’ new book on the topic, Flash Boys. As Lewis explains, high-frequency trading typically works by exploiting a powerful combination of speed and information: high-frequency traders use sophisticated computer programs to see and analyze trade orders...
Articles & Perspectives
March 31, 2014
‘Big Short’ Case Tests the Reach of the SEC’s Administrative Forum
Labaton Sucharow
Posted March 31, 2014 On March 21, Wing Chau – a subprime CDO manager who featured prominently in Michael Lewis’s best-selling book “The Big Short” – sued the SEC, claiming that the SEC violated his constitutional rights by choosing to bring its fraud claims against him in its own administrative forum, rather than in federal...
Articles & Perspectives
March 26, 2014
Why Do People Commit Securities Fraud? SEC Speech Probes for Answers
Labaton Sucharow
One of the most vexing questions in securities enforcement – and in life more generally – is “why do otherwise good people end up doing bad things?”. Why do once promising professionals risk their careers, integrity and freedom for a few more dollars, or to shore up their company’s stock price?These questions were recently the...
Articles & Perspectives
March 25, 2014
Madoff Verdicts Show the Risks of Staying Silent
Labaton Sucharow
After the revelation in 2008 that Bernard Madoff’s “wealth management” business was actually a colossal Ponzi scheme, Madoff’s victims and the public immediately asked: “Who else in the Madoff organization knew and, if they knew, why didn’t they come forward?” On Monday, that question was answered, at least in part, by a jury considering criminal...
Articles & Perspectives
March 20, 2014
Focus on the FCPA: SEC Enforcement Trends
Labaton Sucharow
This is the first in an ongoing series of posts focusing on current trends in SEC enforcement actions, and how those trends impact current and potential whistleblowers. We’ve chosen to highlight actions brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) first, because the FCPA continues to be a top priority for the Enforcement Division and,...
Articles & Perspectives
March 19, 2014
Ethics at Work: 2013 Survey Finds Positive Trends; Some Troubling Findings
Labaton Sucharow
Last month, the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) released its biennial National Business Ethics Survey (NBES). I was honored to serve on the NBES Advisory Panel this year, particularly given its reputation as a definitive barometer of workplace ethics. As we’ve seen in prior years, the survey shows some very positive trends as well as causes...
Articles & Perspectives
Featured
December 2, 2019
Understanding the Factors that Determine an SEC Whistleblower Award: Opportunities & Outcomes
Jordan A. Thomas As the SEC Whistleblower Program grows in awareness ($387 million in awards to date is pretty good advertising) more and more individuals explore the investor protection initiative that provides eligible whistleblowers monetary incentives and employment protections with the comfort of anonymous reporting. The program has been such an unmitigated success that between...
Articles & Perspectives
July 23, 2019
SEC Whistleblower Program Surpasses $2 Billion in Monetary Sanctions With Latest Whistleblower Award
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) awarded a half-million dollars “to an overseas whistleblower whose expeditious reporting helped the Commission bring a successful enforcement action.” The Commission’s press release further reports that, with this and other recent enforcement actions brought as a result of tips from SEC whistleblowers, the SEC Whistleblower Program has yielded more than $2...
Articles & Perspectives
July 24, 2018
Private: Dashboard: Fast Facts from the ECI’s 2018 State of Ethics & Compliance in the Workplace
Corporate Whistleblower Watch
47% of employees said that within the last 12 months they observed conduct that either violated organizational standards or the law. 69% of employees reported the misconduct that they observed. 44% of employees who reported misconduct experienced retaliation, double the figure in 2013. 16% of employees experienced pressure to compromise standards 40% of employees believed...
Articles & Perspectives

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