Whistleblower Lawyer Blog

The final whistleblower rules of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are being announced now at a CFTC open meeting. Like the SEC, the CFTC has rejected any provision that whistleblowers be required first to report internally the violations in question, but will treat internal reporting as a "positive" consideration in its awards.

The alternative pushed by business would have required all CFTC whistleblowers first to risk career suicide by reporting the boss’s wrongdoing to the boss himself.

Industry’s approach would have made the Commission the laughing stock of law enforcement, since no rational person with a career and a mortgage would risk reporting even major fraud with that requirement.

Fortunately, the CFTC put first its responsibility to protect the public, and is taking seriously its law enforcement duties by seeking to root out major frauds.

Madoff, Stanford, and the other major frauds of the past decade prove that internal compliance programs cannot protect the public. That is why Congress in Dodd-Frank demanded the first meaningful SEC and CFTC whistleblower programs.

We applaud the CFTC on this important stand, and look forward to reviewing the text of the final rules when made available.

Continue reading "CFTC Announces Final Whistleblower Rules, Rejects "Mandatory Internal Reporting" by Whistleblowers" »

The SEC Whistleblower Program encompasses not only classic securities violations, but also violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA"), a topic we have followed closely.

This past week, the SEC filed and settled an FCPA case against Armor Holdings, Inc., and collected more than $5.6 million, while the Department of Justice added almost $10.3 million in criminal fines.

The SEC charged that Armor Holdings, Inc. engaged in a bribery scheme to sell body armor to U.N. peacekeeping missions. The Commission also alleged that Armor Holdings violated the federal securities laws' books and records and internal controls provisions by failing to account properly for commissions in 2001-2007.

Demonstrating the SEC's increased emphasis on FCPA enforcement, this case is one of 32 FCPA cases the Commission has filed since 2010. Bribery of foreign government officials for business is having increased repercussions.

According to the SEC's Complaint, through a U.K. subsidiary Armor Holdings paid more than $200,000 through an intermediary to a United Nations official who could send it business, and used a sham consulting agreement to disguise its actions. The result was more than $7 million in additional revenues, and more than $1.5 million in additional profits, according to the SEC.

Continue reading "SEC Charges FCPA Bribery Scheme--Feds Collect $15 Million" »

The suspense over the final SEC whistleblower rules ended with the SEC's release of its final whistleblower rules last week. The CFTC is to follow suit soon in announcing its own commodities whistleblower rules.

We have followed the SEC rules' development, after being part of the small group of pro-whistleblower attorneys who met with the Commissioners and staff and urged changes to the draft rules to make them effective.

In January, I had the opportunity to visit with SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, Director Khuzami, and SEC staff, and then separately with Commissioners Luis A. Aguilar, Kathleen L. Casey, Troy A. Paredes, and Elisse B. Walter, to discuss changes to the proposed rules for the new SEC Whistleblower program.

The SEC apparently recognized that its draft whistleblower rules already were too slanted toward protecting industry, at the expense of the public.

The Commission wisely rejected business’s attempt to require all whistleblowers first to commit likely career suicide by reporting the boss’s wrongdoing to the boss himself.

Industry’s approach would have made the Commission the laughing stock of law enforcement, since no rational person with a career and a mortgage would risk reporting even major fraud with that requirement.

Fortunately, the SEC put first its responsibility to protect investors, and is taking seriously its law enforcement duties by seeking to root out major frauds. Madoff, Stanford, and the other major frauds of the past decade prove that internal compliance programs cannot protect the public. That is why Congress in Dodd-Frank demanded the first meaningful SEC whistleblower program.

The SEC also seemed to realize that its initial rules had too many exclusions, which were often vague and complex. Its initial rules created too much uncertainty about rewards, and would have left many major frauds undetected while investors suffer.

The SEC's announcement shows an effort to do what make sense by not excluding so many potentially valuable whistleblowers, who are essential to uncovering and understanding complex schemes.

With more than 300 pages, the SEC whistleblower rules still may be more complex than needed. All in all, however, the rules are an improvement over the first draft, and the SEC is to be commended for putting the public’s interest first.

Just as we have followed closely the development of the IRS Whistleblower program since Congress authorized it in December 2006, we are watching the birth of the new SEC Whistleblower program. In 2010's Dodd-Frank Financial Reform law, Congress mandated the creation of what could be the first meaningful SEC and CFTC Whistleblower programs.

Today, the SEC took a major step in announcing the first head of the nascent SEC Whistleblower Office: Sean McKessy, a former Senior Counsel in the SEC's Division of Enforcement from 1997 to 2000.

According to the SEC's announcement, "Mr. McKessy served as corporate secretary for both Altria Group, Inc. and AOL Inc., and as securities counsel for Caterpillar, Inc. In these roles, Mr. McKessy developed and supervised internal compliance and reporting programs related to the federal securities laws, served as corporate compliance officer, and coordinated the reporting of potential violations to boards of directors."

Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, praised Mr. McKessy as "uniquely positioned to oversee the Commission's whistleblower program. The Enforcement Division and whistleblowers alike will greatly benefit from Sean's first-hand experience in bringing enforcement cases, handling whistleblower complaints and understanding the workings of internal corporate compliance programs."

We hope that Mr. McKessy seeks the advice of IRS Whistleblower Office Director Steve Whitlock, who has built the first IRS Whistleblower Office over the past four years. Mr. Whitlock's Office has attracted many claims in the billions of dollars that will help stop tax cheats from burdening other taxpayers with their share of the tax load.

The SEC would also do well to resist industry's pleas to ignore principles that have worked so successfully for 25 years in encouraging whistleblower claims under the False Claims Act, the nation's major whistleblower law.

Last month, I had the opportunity to visit with SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, Director Khuzami, and SEC staff, and then separately with Commissioners Luis A. Aguilar, Kathleen L. Casey, Troy A. Paredes, and Elisse B. Walter, to discuss the proposed rules for the new SEC Whistleblower program.

Each of the SEC Commissioners seemed interested in how the False Claims Act and the IRS Whistleblower program have encouraged significant claims--with no harm to corporate compliance programs. Let's hope each of them fully uses this opportunity to stop the next round of Madoffs, by establishing the nation's first meaningful SEC Whistleblower program.

As we have discussed previously, bribery of foreign government officials is the subject of many cases filed by the SEC under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Those cases, which often bring significant recoveries, will increase in number as a result of rewards to whistleblowers under the new SEC Whistleblower program that we have followed.

The SEC today announced the successful conclusion of an FCPA investigation of Maxwell Technologies, Inc. The SEC announced it had filed a "settled" case through which Maxwell agreed to pay $6.3 million in disgorgement and interest, based on allegations that a Maxwell subsidiary "repeatedly" paid bribes to Chinese government officials. The object was to obtain business from Chinese entities owned by the state.

In a related criminal case, Maxwell reportedly agreed to pay an $8 million criminal penalty in installments.

According to the SEC's announcement, as a result of this "bribery scheme, Maxwell SA was awarded contracts that generated over $15 million in revenues and $5.6 million in profits for Maxwell."

FCPA cases should only increase based on the new rewards to SEC Whistleblowers.

I recently had the opportunity to meet and discuss the developing rules for the new SEC Whistleblower program with SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, Director of Division of Enforcement Robert Khuzami, and SEC staff, as well as separately with each of the other Commissioners Luis A. Aguilar, Kathleen L. Casey, Troy A. Paredes, and Elisse B. Walter. I was impressed by the close attention each is paying to establishing what we hope will be a meaningful SEC Whistleblower program.

So long as industry representatives do not convince the SEC to jettison the proven procedures followed in the most highly successful whistleblower rewards programs under the False Claims Act and the IRS Whistleblower statute, the nation will have an historic opportunity to stop fraud that falls within the SEC's jurisdiction.

The SEC's release today is linked here:

We have been awaiting the SEC's proposed rules for its new SEC Whistleblower Program, released yesterday. Even before the announcement, however, those who oppose this first potentially meaningful SEC Whistleblower Program have begun efforts to undermine it.

The SEC's website already includes some firms' suggestions to impose extreme restrictions on SEC whistleblowers--contrary to how other successful whistleblower programs operate.

Designing any new whistleblower program should begin with studying more than two decades of successes of the nation's major whistleblower law, the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act has been so effective in uncovering and penalizing fraud against the government since 1986 that it has inspired Congress and the states to enact a wave of new whistleblower statutes--including the Dodd-Frank whistleblower mandate in section 922.

Unless the SEC seeks to create an ineffective program, it makes no sense to impose restrictions on whistleblowers that do not exist in False Claims Act cases.

One such damaging restriction would be requiring whistleblowers first to report within the company violations of the law, before going to the SEC. Past experience with the False Claims Act shows that warning violators of the law (who know their own violations) invites destruction of evidence by those who engineered the lawbreaking, and destroys the whistleblower's career.

Other deceptive suggestions are that the SEC follow the "approach" of the promising new IRS Whistleblower Program--but with far greater restrictions on whistleblowing.

For example, one representative of future defendants urges what are actually variations on the "one-bite" and "no-bite" rules of the IRS, which historically have restricted the IRS's receipt of certain information, or information from certain whistleblowers.

In fact, the IRS trend appears to be the opposite. In a March 2010 IRS Notice and in June 2010 changes to the Internal Revenue Manual, the "one-bite" rule appears to be giving way to the more sensible approach of allowing whistleblowers more than "one bite" at submitting information that may be useful to the IRS.

Likewise, a suggestion that the SEC adopt a variation the "no-bite" rule would expand it far beyond the IRS concept of not accepting information from the "taxpayer's representative" before the IRS. This suggestion would go much further and prohibit submissions to the SEC by anyone who has a "fiduciary" duty to a public company--which arguably could be most or all employees.

We will comment further on the specifics of yesterday's proposed rules, but the basic principles above should guide the SEC in what it finally decides.

The SEC's announcement yesterday is reprinted below:

Continue reading "With New SEC Whistleblower Program Proposed Rules Announced, Will the SEC Allow Potential Defendants to Gut Them?" »

Our whistleblower lawyer blog has followed closely the development of the first potentially meaningful SEC Whistleblower and Commodities Whistleblower Programs. That link provides regular updates.

Based on our firm's long experience in representing whistleblowers, we were asked by the Senate Banking Committee staff for input in how the new SEC and CFTC whistleblower provisions of the July 2010 Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act should work. We urged that the Senate change the tepid House version, which provided no meaningful rewards to whistleblowers, in favor of an enforceable right for SEC and CFTC whistleblowers to a significant reward.

Fortunately, that approach is now the law. We are currently working on select Dodd-Frank whistleblower matters involving SEC whistleblowers and Commodities whistleblowers, as well as our False Claims Act and IRS Whistleblower cases. Those cases include a growing area of enforcement, bribery of foreign government officials and other violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

For a free consultation about a potential whistleblower claim, please call us at 800-228-9159, or email us HERE.

One of the most interesting twists to the new SEC Whistleblower Program will be how many commercial bribes and kickbacks paid to foreign government officials will now come to light. As we have written about previously, the SEC shares jurisdiction with the Justice Department over such cases that violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

An example of why whistleblowers will come forward is this afternoon's announcement of the SEC's $39 million settlement with ABB Ltd ("ABB"), a Swiss company that provides power and automation products and services.

The SEC alleged that ABB made more than $2.7 million in bribes and kickbacks to obtain more than $100 million in contracts. The payments allegedly were made to "government officials in Mexico to obtain business with government owned power companies," and to the "former regime in Iraq to obtain contracts under the United Nations Oil for Food Program."

According to the SEC, some of the kickbacks were made through bank guarantees and cash payments. As is common in disguising unlawful payments, the kickbacks were recorded on the company's books as legitimate payments--here, for "after sales services," "consultation costs," and "commissions."

ABB, without admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint, agreed not only to pay disgorgement and penalties totalling more than $39 million, but also agreed to pay a criminal fine of $30,420,000, according to the SEC. The company also agreed to be bound by certain "undertakings" concerning its FCPA compliance program.

As to how an FCPA whistleblower might fare who reports similar FCPA violations of bribery of foreign government officials, the new SEC Whistleblower Program pays 10% to 30% of monetary sanctions collected--approximately $4 million to $12 million under similar facts.

The SEC's announcement is reprinted in full below, and the SEC's Complaint is linked here:

Continue reading "SEC Recovers $39 Million under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for Bribery and Kickbacks in Mexico and Iraq" »