September 12, 2014
The Corporate Officer as SEC Whistleblower?
Labaton Sucharow
Corporate officers owe certain fiduciary duties, including a duty of loyalty, to an organization and its shareholders. What is required when the officer discovers possible violations of the federal securities laws? In an article in Risk Management Magazine Jordan Thomas and Lawrence A. Hamermesh examine corporate officers’ rights and duties in light of the new...
Articles & Perspectives
August 30, 2014
The SEC Whistleblower Program Year in Review
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Articles & Perspectives
August 27, 2014
Support Protections for Whistleblowers
The New York Times
In Room for Debate, The New York Times invites knowledgeable outside contributors to discuss news events and other timely issues. In the article titled “Holding Bankers Accountable,” the following question was proposed: Can more be done to hold bankers accountable for the financial crisis or is there a good reason the Justice Department has reached...
Articles & Perspectives
August 7, 2014
Achievements, Challenges and Change: A Look at the Past, Present and Future of the SEC Whistleblower Program
Labaton Sucharow
We discuss highlights from Achievements, Challenges and Change: The SEC Whistleblower Program Year in Review. Four years ago this month, with the country still reeling from financial crisis, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act-the most sweeping financial reform effort since the Great Depression. The goal of Dodd-Frank was as ambitious...
Articles & Perspectives
July 23, 2014
The Best Way to Honor Whistleblowers on National Whistleblower Appreciation Day? Do More to Protect Them
Labaton Sucharow
In recognition of National Whistleblower Appreciation Day, coming up on July 30, we were asked to contribute a guest post on the Government Accountability Project’s website, which can be found here. GAP is the nation’s leading non-profit, non-partisan whistleblower protection and advocacy organization, which helps expose wrongdoing to the public and actively promotes government and corporate...
Articles & Perspectives
July 21, 2014
Wall Street’s New Enforcers Aim to Muzzle Whistle-Blowers
The New York Times
Articles & Perspectives
July 1, 2014
$8.9 Billion BNP Guilty Plea Shows Power of Whistleblowers
Labaton Sucharow
The Department of Justice resolved another massive criminal investigation yesterday, as French banking giant BNP Paribas pled guilty to willfully evading U.S. embargoes on Iran, Sudan and Cuba. BNP agreed to pay an $8.9 billion fine, one of the largest in U.S. history, and admitted that it had taken steps to conceal the true nature of the...
Articles & Perspectives
June 16, 2014
SEC Settles $2.2 Million Enforcement Action Following Whistleblower Complaint by [Jordan Thomas][Prior Firm] Client
Today, the SEC charged the Albany-based investment advisory firm Paradigm Capital and its owner, Candace Weir, with violating the federal securities laws by engaging in prohibited and undisclosed principal transactions on at least 83 separate occasions, among other charges. Paradigm and Weir agreed to pay total sanctions of approximately $2.2 million to settle the charges. The SEC...
Articles & Perspectives
June 4, 2014
SEC Announces New Whistleblower Award
Labaton Sucharow
The SEC announced yesterday that it will pay two whistleblowers an award of $875,000 for their reporting of original information that led to a successful SEC enforcement action. The total award, which will be split equally between the two whistleblowers, represents 30% of the sanctions collected by the SEC in the case – the maximum percentage award...
Articles & Perspectives
May 30, 2014
[Jordan Thomas][Prior Firm][‘s] Client Profiled in Financial Times
One of the first pieces of advice we give to any prospective client is that while being a whistleblower can be rewarding in many ways, it’s not always easy or glamorous. To the contrary, being a whistleblower can present significant personal and professional challenges, as an article published in this week’s Financial Times Weekend Magazine highlights. The...
Articles & Perspectives
May 27, 2014
What’s the Harm of Corporate Scandals?
Labaton Sucharow
In our experience, one of the primary reasons that whistleblowers come forward to report possible securities violations (and the reason that many attorneys like us chose to devote our professional lives to representing whistleblowers) is concern about the harm that financial misconduct causes. In some cases, this harm is easy to perceive and measure: shareholders...
Articles & Perspectives
May 21, 2014
CFTC Announces First Whistleblower Award
Labaton Sucharow
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced on Tuesday the first award paid under the CFTC Whistleblower Program launched in 2010. Like the SEC Whistleblower Program, the CFTC Whistleblower Program was created by the Dodd-Frank Act, and allows eligible individuals to receive a monetary award if they provide original information that leads to a successful CFTC enforcement action resulting...
Articles & Perspectives