David K. Colapinto

David Colapinto is a nationally recognized advocate for whistleblowers specializing in qui tam False Claims Act cases and other whistleblower reward claims before the SEC, CFTC, IRS and FinCen.

Among his accomplishments, Mr. Colapinto was lead counsel for one of the whistleblowers in a major qui tam False Claims Act case alleging that the drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb paid kickbacks to medical providers. The case helped recover more than $500 million for U.S. taxpayers and the government paid more than $50 million to all of the whistleblowers involved in the case.

Mr. Colapinto has been consistently recognized by his peers as a leading whistleblower attorney, repeatedly earning honors such as Washingtonian Top Lawyers, LawDragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers, and Martindale-Hubbell’s AV Preeminent rating.

Mr. Colapinto is lead attorney for the whistleblower in a major biofuels fraud case which was the first case filed under three whistleblower award statutes (SEC, IRS and False Claims Act). After 8 years of litigation Mr. Colapinto obtained a $69 million judgment against most of the defendants in the False Claims Act lawsuit. Additionally, the SEC brought a securities fraud case based on the whistleblower’s allegations which resulted in a settlement of millions of dollars. As a result of the government’s successful enforcement actions, Mr. Colapinto obtained for his client a SEC whistleblower award of 30% of the amounts collected in the SEC and related criminal actions (the maximum award amount under the SEC Whistleblower Program).

Mr. Colapinto was co-counsel for UBS bank whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld, helping to obtain the largest ever tax whistleblower award ($104 million) for Mr. Birkenfeld in 2012.

He has also successfully handled many other cases under the False Claims Act and other whistleblower award laws resulting in millions of dollars in recoveries for taxpayers and whistleblowers.

Mr. Colapinto has obtained False Claims Act recoveries for whistleblowers alleging a wide variety of fraud, including allegations of wrongful foreclosures on residential mortgages, illegal recruiting of students at a private, for-profit university, Iraq War contracting fraud, double-billing of the government for labor and parts, Buy America Act violations, and wrongful foreclosures on residential mortgages.

He also has a long track record of successful representation of government and private sector employees in whistleblower retaliation cases. For example, Mr. Colapinto successfully represented Dr. Fredric Whitehurst, the FBI lab forensics expert who suffered retaliation after reporting serious misconduct and poor lab practices at the FBI which resulted in significant reforms at the FBI crime lab as well as a record $1.6 million settlement for the whistleblower in 1998. As a direct result of the Whitehurst v. FBI case, President Clinton also ordered the Attorney General to implement the FBI whistleblower statute.

Mr. Colapinto is a founding partner of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP, where he has represented whistleblowers for more than 30 years. He is also a co-founder of the National Whistleblower Center, a non-profit, non-partisan organization, where he currently serves pro bono as general counsel.