Professor Ventry Quoted on Whistleblower Case in Ignites

Professor Dennis Ventry is quoted in an article published by Ignites, a service of the Financial Times, concerning the prominent case of an attorney who claims he was fired in retaliation for flagging illegal activity.

David Danon alleges that he was dismissed by Vanguard, the nation’s largest mutual fund manager, because he alerted other employees that the firm had illegally dodged billions of dollars in federal and state taxes. Vanguard has argued that Danon is not subject to whistleblower protections under the Dodd-Frank Act because the law protects employees only when they make reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“There’s a factual dispute as to whether or not and when and in what sequence and how Danon reported information internally before disclosing information to the IRS and SEC,” said Ventry. “These are triable issues of fact that require discovery when those facts are in dispute.”

The article also quotes from Ventry’s forthcoming UC Davis Law Review article “Stitches for Snitches: Lawyers as Whistleblowers,” which takes issue with what Ventry calls a “deficient analysis of New York ethics rules” by a state court that found Danon violated those rules.

Professor Ventry is an expert in tax policy and legal ethics. His research interests include tax expenditure analysis, family taxation, professional responsibility and standards of care, tax filing and administration, tax compliance, public finance, and tax and legal history. In addition, he is a member of the IRS Advisory Council, and co-author on the casebook, Federal Income Taxation with Martin McMahon, Jr., Daniel L. Simmons, and Bradley T. Borden.

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