Accomplishments

The firm is most proud of the ability of its partners to win major cases for whistleblowers.  Some of these cases are highlighted in the Whistleblowers and Major Cases sections.  


Linked on the right are some of the recognitions received by the firm and its partners from peer-reviewers or ot her organizations or courts that have acknowledged the firm's accomplishments.  

Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto's achievements include:

  • Represented the largest tax whistleblower in history whose disclosure enabled over $5 billion to be recovered by the U.S. Treasury.
  • Successfully represented leading bank whistleblower, in 2012, concerning foreclosure-abuses that fueled the financial "meltdown" and forced millions of Americans out of their homes.
  • Achieved a major victory and settlement for top civil contracting officer at the US Army Corps of Engineers who blew the whistle on multi-million contracting fraud in the war with Iraq.
  • Represented leading whistleblower in $515 million fraud recovery through the false claims act from Bristol Myers Squib.
  • Represented whistleblower whose disclosures forced UBS to be fined $750 million by the Security Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.
  • Provided pro bono legal services to draft rule proposal to SEC for the Dodd-Frank whistleblower program. The proposal was adopted by the Commission and included critical protections for compliance officers and for whistleblowers; even those that participate in fraud are still eligible for rewards.
  • The firm’s partners authored the leading handbooks and textbooks in whistleblower law.
  • Challenging government contract fraud across the United States.
  • Holding government contractors accountable by compelling civil penalties and criminal prosecution of unscrupulous companies.
  • Representing clients whose disclosures have resulted in the direct recovery of over $2 billion to the U.S. Taxpayers from dishonest corporations and individuals.
  • Working with Congress to pass critical whistleblower laws, including the No-FEAR Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the consumer product safety act,  adding whistleblower protections into the stimulus laws,  and the Civil Rights Tax Relief Act.
  • Leading the effort to ban "hush money" payments in federal cases involving environmental and nuclear violations.
  • Setting national precedent permitting federal employees to publicly expose wrong doing at and to criticize their employing agencies.
  • Revealing vulnerabilities at U.S. nuclear power plants to airborne terrorist attack and forcing reforms within the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
  • Creating precedent permitting federal employees to use the "mixed case" theory in order to obtain the right to trial by jury on their merit systems protection board claims
  • Findings government doctors protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act
  • Winning reinstatement for the country's highest-ranking corporate nuclear
    whistleblower.
  • Forcing the recall of thousands of unsafe bullet proof vests sold to law enforcement and members of the u.s. military
  • Helping to block President George W. Bush's nominee for a top enforcement post at the EPA, a state regulator who had punished an employee for investigating a cancer cluster.
  • Documenting deficiencies in the FBI's counterterrorism program and misconduct in its investigations at the World Trade Center site after 9/11.
  • Forcing the FBI to improve and accredit its crime lab.
  • Establishing precedents under the first amendment, state common law and numerous federal statutes, recognizing and expanding whistleblower protection.
  • Vindicating whistleblowers before juries, judges and the public.
  • Winning the first-ever "hostile work environment" whistleblower retaliation case
  • Establishing whistleblower rights for FBI agents.
  • Representing whistleblower whose disclosures resulted in Bristol-Myers Squibb paying back the U.S. taxpayers over $500 million under the False Claims Act.
  • Representing courageous whistleblowers who revealed a scheme at Kieger Enterprises to steal and resell supplies and debris from the World Trade Center site and assisting in the effort to prosecute the company owners.