The ability of whistleblowers to provide information to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) is being regularly impeded by employers in contractual negotiations, according to a letter that attorneys David Marshall and Debra Katz of the whistleblower law firm Katz, Marshall & Banks sent to the SEC.  In their letter, the lawyers call on the agency to promulgate a regulation [...]

Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Associate Director of Enforcement Stephen Cohen addressed criticisms of the SEC whistleblower program at a panel discussion in New York on April 26, 2013, entitled “Enforcement 2013: Perspectives from Government Agencies.”  Much has been made in recent months of the fact that the 20-month old SEC whistleblower program has paid [...]

A federal district court recently dismissed a plaintiff’s claim of whistleblower retaliation under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (“Dodd-Frank”) while allowing the plaintiff’s whistleblower retaliation claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”) to continue.  In Jones v. SouthPeak, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [...]

The United States District Court for the District of Colorado recently joined the growing number of federal district courts that have adopted a broad definition of the term “whistleblower” under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”).  On March 25, 2013, in the case of Genberg v. Porter, the Court advanced the [...]

Despite the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (“Dodd-Frank”), the  culture at hedge funds seems to be equal parts cynical and idealistic, according to a recent study commissioned by a  New York law firm.  Almost half of hedge fund professionals surveyed believe that their competitors engage in illegal [...]

At the annual “The SEC Speaks” conference held late last month, officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) discussed achievements in 2012 and looked ahead to 2013.  Among the speakers was Jane Norberg, the Deputy Director for the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower.  In her remarks, summarized by the Harvard Law School Forum on [...]

The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Whistleblower Program made public its FY 2012 Report to Congress on Wednesday, February 13, 2013.  Pursuant to section 7623(b) of the Internal Revenue Code, added in December 2006, the IRS is required to pay awards to whistleblowers if the information an individual provides substantially contributes to the collection of tax, penalties, interest, [...]

CNBC published an article earlier this month which pointed out an interesting fact about the 2012 Annual Report released by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Office of the Whistleblower, which we blogged about in November of last year.  The CNBC article noted an aspect of the report that we had failed to pick up [...]

Lawyers for the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) faced tough criticism from justices of the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday, January 8, 2013, concerning an insider trading case the agency brought against Marc J. Gabelli and Bruce Alpert, formerly of the financial services company, Gabelli Funds LLC.  According to the Wall Street Journal’s Law [...]

Corporate whistleblower Dr. Eric Ben-Artzi announced earlier this month that he had blown the whistle to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) regarding what he alleged to be multi-billion securities violations at Deutsche Bank, the Germany-based global investment bank.  According to a press release issued by the Government Accountability Project (“GAP”), a non-profit whistleblower advocacy [...]