Bio-Rad Appeals $11 Million Verdict Awarded to FCPA Whistleblower

FCPA Enforcement Action Whistleblower FCPA Bio-Rad

Following a $55 million civil and criminal FCPA settlement by Bio-Rad, a life science research and diagnostics company, in November 2014, the company’s former General Counsel and Secretary, Sanford Wadler, filed a civil complaint against Bio-Rad and executive officers and board members alleging that he was fired for blowing the whistle on FCPA issues. In February 2017 a jury awarded Wadler a total of $11 million in punitive and compensatory damages (including double back-pay under Dodd-Frank).

Bio-Rad recently appealed that verdict to the Ninth Circuit on the grounds that the trial court should have directed the verdict in favor of Bio-Rad because, it argues, the alleged FCPA violations were the result of Wadler’s lack of due diligence, because Wadler did not first consult the company’s compliance officers and FCPA lawyers before reporting, and because his allegations were discredited by trial witnesses. Bio-Rad also claims that the trial court wrongly excluded certain impeachment testimony, and that Wadley did not qualify as a “whistleblower” under Dodd-Frank in light of his internal reporting.