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Whistleblower Action Network Attorney Tim Terry gave a presentation regarding the provisions and applications of the Federal and Nevada False Claims Act to the 2011 Nevada Government Civil Attorneys Conference at Lake Tahoe in May. Efforts like this vastly improve the utility of the False Claims Act by arming as many attorneys with powerful information as possible.

Cohen Law Group lawyer Steven Cohen gave a presentation to the Dow Jones Global Compliance Symposium March 31st – April 1st. The presentation was an analysis of the newly passed Dodd-Frank Act, which encourages corporate whistleblowers to inform the SEC of potential securities that would generally go underreported by corporations. View his remarks here.

News From the Whistleblower Action Network 

Whistleblower Action Network affiliate Steve Cohen of Cohen Law Group presented “Developing Laws to Root Out Fraud to the IRIS Serbian Delegation on May 13, 2010. Cohen engaged an audience of Serbian government officials, journalists, and leaders of NGOs active in the movement against fraud and corruption. His presentation focused on how to use whistleblower laws to ferret out fraud in their home country.

Governor Patrick Quinn and Illinois lawmakers have strengthened the Illinois whistleblower law to ensure that scarce state resources are not wasted on paying for fraudulent schemes.

Governor Quinn signed into law amendments to the Illinois False Claims Act, making Illinois the first state in the country to strengthen its false claims act to mirror the federal False Claims Act (FCA), which was amended in May 2009.  The new amendments improve the working relationship between private whistleblowers and state prosecutors in the same way as the recent federal law amendments.

In the wake of devastating financial fraud scandals over the past several years, Congress recently created a securities fraud whistleblower program.  This new program will encourage private citizens to stem the rising tide of financial and securities market fraud.

The financial reform bill passed in July 2010 is another example of whistleblowers’ increasing importance in fighting fraud and recovering ill-gotten gains.  The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) includes provisions to incentivize and protect whistleblowers who report commodity law violations to the government.

Congress has extended the FCA’s retaliation protections to include whistleblowers’ families.  The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act extended the False Claims Act’s (FCA) anti-retaliation protections, which formerly reached only whistleblowers, to “associated others.”  By reducing one of whistleblowers’ common concerns, this expanded protection offers further encouragement for whistleblowers to come forward with information about fraud.  The new law also imposes a three-year statute of limitations on retaliation actions, helping to clarify some confusio

Although they may not have received much news coverage, two of the healthcare reform bill’s provisions made significant improvements to False Claims Act (FCA) enforcement.