Whistleblowers: Incentives, Disincentives, and Protection Strategies

Foreword

by Dr. Gaytri D. Kachroo, Esq.

A FEW YEARS AGO, the term “whistleblower” called to mind odd and sporadic anecdotes about one or two courageous individuals who dared confront and expose wrongdoing within political and corporate halls. However, two events over the last few years have overhauled whistleblowing into an industry, capable of diverse creative frameworks and modeling of the kind I am engaged in with my plethora of whistleblowing clients and incentivized by a burgeoning regulation encouraging reform and a new form of internal audit that is discussed in detail in the pages you are about to turn. These two events are the exposure of the Madoff fraud by Harry Markopolos and Julian Assange's WikiLeaks. Markopolos's testimony before the House Finance Committee in large part fueled the new whistleblower legislation, part of the Dodd-Frank Reform Act, analyzed in this book, and WikiLeaks is touted by many to have catalyzed the popular political uprisings throughout the Middle East. Each event marks major changes in the global transition to greater transparency and accountability of financial and political institutions.

When Madoff gave up his immense fraudulent endeavor on December 11, 2008, he sealed not only his own fate but also that of Harry Markopolos, the shadow that had chased him for almost a decade alongside his stellar team of fraud fighting detectives, Frank Casey, Neil Chelo, and Michael Ocrant, and persisted in blowing the whistle about Madoff to the U.S. ...