DiCello Levitt Expands Whistleblower Practice With Preeminent SEC Whistleblower Team

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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October 30, 2014
Top Lawmakers Urge SEC to Protect Whistleblowers
Labaton Sucharow
This week, eight leading Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform and House Financial Services Committees sent a letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White calling on the Commission to ensure corporations do not enact measures meant to stymie whistleblowers. The letter pointed to a recent Washington Post article, which outlined numerous ways companies have restricted employees...
Articles & Perspectives
October 24, 2014
Whistleblowers on Tour
Labaton Sucharow
This week, I was honored to participate in the NYC stop of the Government Accountability Project’s Whistleblower Tour, which seeks to educate the public about the important role whistleblowers play in promoting government and corporate accountability. Speaking on a panel with Enron Whistleblower Sherron Watkins, Jon Oberg, Louis Clark and Jennifer Pacella was a phenomenal experience,...
Articles & Perspectives
October 21, 2014
Gearing Up for Annual Report, White Touts Whistleblower Program’s Success
Labaton Sucharow
As we await the Annual Report of the SEC Office of the Whistleblower—expected in mid-November—Mary Jo White categorically praised the program, citing its ‘enormous success’ in generating information about significant securities violations. In her address last week to the Ontario Securities Commission, which is considering the implementation of an incentive-based whistleblower program, White remarked that there was “no...
Articles & Perspectives
October 20, 2014
2014 Enforcement Division Report
Last week, the SEC released key data relating to Enforcement Division activity in FY 2014.  Among the highlights, we note a 10% increase in enforcement actions over the prior year. Most importantly, monetary sanctions are significantly larger; a 22% increase in penalties an disgorgement as compared to FY 2013.  Whistleblowers continue to play a crucial...
Articles & Perspectives
October 12, 2014
Employment Agreements that Undermine Dodd-Frank’s Whistleblower Provisions
American Bar Association
In an article for the American Bar Association’s Journal of Labor & Employment Law, the authoritative publication for workplace issues, together with Professor Richard Moberly and fellow attorney Jason Zuckerman, Jordan A. Thomas examines the legality and enforcement of employment agreements that effectively undermine the crucial investor protection efforts established by the Dodd-Frank Act. Please click here...
Articles & Perspectives
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
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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