Whistleblower in healthcare bribery case awarded $37 million, the largest SEC award this year

The Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded more than $37 million to a person who reported information about a bribery scheme in a large European healthcare company. That’s one of the largest awards paid to an individual by the SEC. The agency did not name the company or the identity of the whistleblower, which is its practice. However, it said that the award related to a publicly traded European healthcare company. Counsel for the whistleblower said that the whistleblower was a company outsider who provided information concerning a bribery scheme where the distributors of the company inflated the profit margin on sales of the healthcare products sold to hospitals and used the cash to bribe foreign government officials to get business. Under the SEC program, whistleblowers are eligible for between 10% and 30% of monetary penalties when their tips result in a successful enforcement action and when the penalties total more than $1 million.

Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer who handles SEC whistleblower cases as well as False Claims Act cases. He can be reached at 978-880-4758 or jeff@jeffnewmanlaw.com