July 3, 2025

🎇 Fire up the grill, become your block's resident pyrotechnic expert, and set the sky ablaze with fireworks ready to outshine Uncle Sam's wardrobe. Obviously make time to salute the Founding Fathers and commemorate the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, when the country we now know as the United States of America was established. And honor your own freedom by taking the day off on Friday or enjoying all the barbecue's offerings. 

⚙️Switching gears to government enforcement news and this week's edition of Whistleblower Insider...

 🏆 The First-Place Winner of our Fourth Law School Scholarship Essay Contest on the importance of whistleblowers is Hala Arnouk. Read her winning essay below.

💸 We covered a whistleblower-initiated False Claims Act lawsuit resulting in a $1.29M settlement. 

⚖️A Throwback Thursday Independence Day-adjacent OpEd by Constantine Cannon partner Gordon Schnell from earlier this year on how President Trump may be clearing a path for whistleblowers.  

📰 Scroll through for more updates... 

🎆Hope everyone has a safe holiday weekend.

First Place Winner of Constantine Cannon’s Whistleblower Essay Contest: Hala Arnouk

Congrats to the First-Place Winner of our Fourth Law School Scholarship Essay Contest on the importance of whistleblowers. This win (and the $1,000 award) goes to Hala Arnouk who will begin Harvard Law School this fall. In her winning essay, Hala examines the critical role of whistleblowers, focusing on one particularly close to home, a Syrian forensic photographer who provided a window to the world of atrocities so many suffered in the hands of a brutal regime in that country.

Read the full story here.

 Health Wealth Will Pay $1.29M to Resolve Whistleblower-Initiated False Claims Act Lawsuit

Georgia-based Health Wealth and its owner, Dr. Subodh Agrawal, have agreed to pay $1.29 million to settle allegations that they knowingly caused the submission of false claims to Medicare.

Read the full story here.

 Throwback Thursday: Constantine Cannon Partner Gordon Schnell Featured in The Hill on How Trump May Be Clearing a Path for Whistleblowers

In February, The Hill published an OpEd piece by Constantine Cannon whistleblower lawyer Gordon Schnell on how President Trump may be clearing a path for whistleblowers. Schnell offered three reasons why an unintended consequence of President Trump’s efforts to dramatically cut federal agency staff and resources may be to create an opening for whistleblowers to step into the void.

Read the full story here.

 Lloyd Constantine in the News: Payments Dive

As reported in Payments Dive, "A federal judge has postponed an antitrust trial for several national retailers suing Visa and Mastercard over card swipe fees to next year." Lloyd Constantine commented: “The delay of six months in a case that has been in court for 13 years was opposed by my firm.”

Read the full story here.

In Case You Missed It:

• Honoring Pride Month with Our Spotlight on LGBTQ+ Whistleblowers
  
  
•  Second Place Winner of Constantine Cannon’s Whistleblower Essay Contest: Danitza Nicolle Ceccarelli
  
  
• Assertio to Pay $3.6M in False Claims Act Settlement over Fentanyl Marketing Practices