Whistleblower and Qui Tam Litigation

Employees who report fraud often are subject to reprisals from their employers such as termination, blacklisting, harassment and the issuing of negative job references. We represent courageous professionals who have been retaliated against for reporting that their employers have endangered patient safety, defrauded the IRS, committed securities fraud, or fraudulently procured payment from the government. To achieve the best results for our clients, we rely upon our knowledge of the federal and state employment and whistleblower statutes, our tenacity as litigators, and our ability to litigate complex securities, tax, healthcare, and accounting issues.

Our dedication to representing whistleblowers has resulted in the establishment of a precedential ruling which significantly expands the protection afforded to whistleblowers under Section 806 of the Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act of 2002, Title VIII of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, 18 U.S.C. §1514A (“SOX”). In a widely reported result, we obtained the first decision issued by a federal court holding that former employees who report corporate securities fraud after the termination of their employment are protected against retaliation under SOX.

We also represent whistleblowers in seeking rewards, or bounties, under the Dodd-Frank Act, the Internal Revenue Service Whistleblower law, and other statutes, consisting of a percentage of the funds recovered by the government due to the information provided by the whistleblower. Additionally, we represent whistleblowers, sometimes referred to as relators, seeking to prosecute qui tam cases on behalf of the government against government contractors for having submitted false claims, which also enable such whistleblowers to receive a percentage of the funds recovered.

Representative Cases

Here are some of the outcomes our lawyers have achieved for our clients:

  • Persuaded the United States Department of Labor to find that reasonable cause existed to believe that an employer blacklisted and retaliated against a former employee in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s whistleblower protections.
  • Representation of a former high-level executive with respect to claims against a global financial services firm arising under the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower anti-retaliation provision.
  • Representation of multiple whistleblowers seeking to recover bounties for reporting violations of the securities and bank secrecy laws by large financial institutions.
  • Representation of a foreign currency trader with respect to claims that a bank terminated him in retaliation for his internal reports that his former supervisors were pressuring him to engage in speculative trading prohibited by the Dodd-Frank Act and the Volcker Rule.
  • Representation of a number health care employees and providers regarding New York’s Health Care Whistleblower Law.