December 18, 2018. Washington, DC. La contraloría General De La Republica, The Office of the Comptroller General For The Republic in Lima, Peru held the annual International Annual Conference on Integrity. As part of NWC’s commemoration of International Anti-Corruption Day 2018, Stephen Kohn presented the keynote address,”Trends in preventing corruption: The value of whistleblowing” to a majority Spanish speaking audience. Kohn discussing the issues of fraud in public contracts, governmental and corporate responsibility in his address.
Kohn spoke about the history of qui tam laws that protect whistleblowers in the U.S. and the importance of having an insider to stop corruption. He also stressed the importance of protecting and rewarding whistleblowers because of empirical studies showed the qui tam laws including the False Claims Act is “the most powerful tool the American people have to protect the government from fraud.” Kohn presented evidence that IRS Whistleblowers were able to recover over $16 billion directly in fines and penalties since 2012, and other countries should adopt these laws to prevent tax evasion, securities fraud, and money laundering.
“Whistleblower reward laws are the linchpin of a successful anti-corruption movement. Any country which wants to protect public integrity will look to the U.S. anti-bribery laws and enact whistleblower reward law best practices,” said Kohn who is also a founding partner in the top qui tam whistleblower firm Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP.
The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic is the highest authority of the National Control System in Peru. The organization supervises, monitors and verifies the correct application of public policies and the use of State resources and assets. National Whistleblower Center would like to thank Nelson Shack Yalta for the invitation and taking a proactive approach in fighting international corruption. The conference brought together 30 national and international speakers that exchanged ideas and analyzed strategies to prevent corruption and fraud.
The presentation was live streamed with Spanish translation. The video is now available on the NWC YouTube channel or by clicking the image above.
