‘Whopper of a Factor’: Pandemic Fueled Incoming Tips, and Clients, Whistleblower Lawyers Say

A Jordan Thomas quote was used for the title of a Nov. 20, 2020 National Law Journal article by C. Ryan Barber, about how the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in the number of whistleblowers coming forward.

Jordan’s “whopper” that he described was the vulnerability felt by employees in a time of major upheaval. Lockdowns and mass layoffs put distance or permanently separated them from employers and co-workers, and this left people with more time to consider reportable wrongdoing and fewer reasons to stay silent about it.

Another major reason discussed in the article for the uptick is the choice by some companies to try to take advantage of the chaos and attribute poor financial results to it that really were the result of prior wrongdoing.

Supporting the points made by the article and Jordan, the former SEC Director of Enforcement stated in a relevant speech that the agency had opened “many COVID-19-related” investigations since the beginning of the pandemic.