
Search Knowledge Center
Search for specific information by professional, content type, industry/service or date.
In this episode, host Jonathan Havens, co-chair of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s Food, Beverage and Agribusiness (FBA) Practice, speaks with Tony Pavel, Senior Food Lawyer and Global Food Law Team Leader at Cargill, a global food, agricultural, financial and industrial products company. These former colleagues discuss how food law has grown more complicated over the years, particularly in relation to FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), traceability, the increasing globalization of supply chains, and consumers demanding labeling transparency and vast product information. They also discuss potential regulatory changes on the horizon given both technological advances in data-driven areas, such as rapid testing, and the beginning of the Biden Administration.
Topics:
On January 7, 2019, the New York State Department of Financial Services (the “Department”) published Guidance on Whistleblowing Programs (the “Guidance”).
Imposing civil penalties and treble damages under the False Claims Act (“FCA”), the Southern District of Texas recently denied defendants’ post-trial motions and entered a staggering $298,498,325 verdict against two mortgage companies and their CEO. In United States v. Americus Mortgage Corporation, et al., No.
A federal court recently ruled that an employee may use his employer’s confidential information in a whistleblower retaliation complaint, regardless of whether an employment confidentiality agreement prohibited him from doing so.
The nation’s top tax court recently broadened the definition of “collected proceeds” to include payments of criminal fines and civil forfeitures, which could result in increased awards for tax fraud whistleblowers. This likely will encourage more whistleblowers to come forward with allegations of tax fraud.
The Tax Whistleblowing Law
In November, an Illinois federal judge blocked a former bank employee from collecting his claimed relator’s share of a potential settlement between the FDIC (acting as the bank’s receiver) and the bank’s former directors. In denying the relator’s share, the court affirmed the previous ruling of a magistrate judge holding the FDIC in this case did not constitute a “government” agency as contemplated
In an issue of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in Khazin v. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., No. 14-1689, 2014 WL 6871393 (3d Cir. Dec. 8, 2014) that certain whistleblower retaliation claims arising under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act were not exempt from predispute arbitration agreements. The court reached this decision after a plaintiff, Boris Khazin, sought to invalidate the predispute arbitration agreement he signed with his former employer, TD Ameritrade, in order to allow his case to proceed to trial.
A former Countrywide Financial Corporation executive who blew the whistle and filed a qui tam lawsuit under the False Claims Act against Bank of America (“BOA”) is slated to receive $57 million dollars for his assistance in helping prosecutors reach a $16.65 billion settlement with BOA in August 2014.
In Brief: