KKC Founding Partner Explains Transnational Whistleblower Laws at Warsaw Human Dimension Conference

Benjamin Gicqueau

Published On: October 15th, 2024

Stephen M. Kohn, founding partner at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto (KKC) and Chairman of the National Whistleblower Center, spoke on October 4 at the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference.

The event was supported by the Organization of Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, an intergovernmental organization aimed at promoting regional security and human rights across North America, Europe, and Asian member states.

Moderated by Diana Nazarets from the Institute for Human Rights, Kohn led a discussion on “Enhancing the Rule of Law through Whistleblower Protections” organized by the Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety and the National Whistleblower Center. During the panel, Kohn gave a summary of how foreign whistleblowers can seek punitive action against their states with U.S. laws on money laundering, securities fraud and bribery.

Kohn stated, “These new legal tools provide human rights defenders and international law enforcement the ability to win. The tools are generally more powerful than those that the corrupt people use in terms of incentives, in terms of compensation, and produce billions of dollars.”

The transnational nature of commerce is such that American jurisdiction over corruption spans as far as the U.S. dollar. In the United States Strategy for Countering Corruption, the U.S. emphasizes protections and advocacy for whistleblowers, an innovative solution to mobilize industry and civil society to combat corruption.

“The whistleblower is the key to detecting corruption, and corruption fuels human rights violations” stated Kohn.

As of 2021, over 5,000 whistleblowers from 132 countries had filed claims in the United States under the Dodd-Frank Act. Speaking to a crowd of representatives from dozens of countries, Kohn asserted: “Worldwide, your whistleblowers will use these laws.” And they have because of certain guarantees of anonymity and confidentiality as well as the opportunity to receive monetary awards of a portion of recovered fines.

Watch the full panel: