Customs Fraud Whistleblower Cases: Building the Tariff-Evasion Qui Tam After the $549 Million Settlement

John McKnight, Partner | Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, LLP

John McKnight is a Partner in the Washington, DC office of Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight and a Co-Chair of the firm’s Whistleblower and Qui Tam Practice Group. His practice centers on representing corporate whistleblowers who have exposed securities fraud, banking misconduct, government contract procurement fraud, customs fraud, and other corporate malfeasance, and he has also represented executives in sensitive wrongful discharge and discrimination matters.

• Education & Credentials

John earned his J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law, an M.F.A. from The New School, and a B.A. from the University of Michigan. He was admitted to the Maryland bar in 2011 and the District of Columbia bar in 2016. During law school, he interned with the Human Rights Team at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and with the Honorable Henry H. Kennedy Jr. (Retired) of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Honorable William Jackson of the District of Columbia Superior Court, and the Honorable Deborah Robinson, Magistrate Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He also participated in the University of Maryland’s International and Comparative Law Clinic in China and learned Mandarin Chinese in preparation for that clinic.

• Recognition & Leadership

John was selected to Washington, DC Super Lawyers as a Top-Rated Civil Litigation attorney for 2026 and has been named to Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Civil Rights and Plaintiff Employment Lawyers each year from 2021 through 2026. As Co-Chair of his firm’s Whistleblower and Qui Tam Practice Group, he helps lead one of the country’s most active plaintiff-side qui tam practices.

• Professional Involvement

John is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia bar associations and of Taxpayers Against Fraud, and he regularly speaks on panels for the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, and Taxpayers Against Fraud. His publications include contributions to the Chambers and Partners employment guides, Global Restructuring Review, and Global Data Review, and he co-authored a firm analysis of the $549.5 million Perfectus settlement and its effect on customs fraud enforcement under the False Claims Act.

• Experience

John’s representations include the former Executive Vice President and Chief Security Officer of Wells Fargo, who assisted the OCC, SEC, and DOJ in recovering $3.5 billion in fines and penalties arising out of the fake account scandal; the former Director of Contracts at Navistar in a case alleging misrepresented pricing on the MRAP vehicle purchase, resolved for $50 million in 2020; a former Office Depot sales representative in a case alleging overcharges to several states, resolved for $68 million in 2015; and a former Fortinet analyst in a case alleging Chinese cybersecurity products were mislabeled as American-made, resolved in 2019. He also obtained a $22.865 million customs fraud settlement involving the misclassification of vitamin imports in violation of U.S. tariff laws and the False Claims Act. Before joining the firm, John practiced at McKnight and Kennedy, LLC, where he gained substantial experience with the False Claims Act and Dodd-Frank, among other enforcement statutes.

Russell Kornblith, Partner | Wigdor LLP

Russell Kornblith is a Partner at Wigdor LLP in New York. His practice focuses on employment discrimination, sexual assault, and whistleblower cases, and he represents both individuals and classes.

• Education & Credentials

Russell received his law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School and his Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Amherst College. At Harvard, he served as an Articles Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, was an Exchange Fellow at l’École Normale Supérieure, and participated in the International Human Rights Clinic, where he contributed to several briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a member of the New York and California bars, is admitted before the First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits and several federal district courts in California, New York, and Tennessee, and completed clerkships with the Honorable James S. Gwin of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and the Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

• Recognition & Leadership

Russell has been recognized as a Law360 Rising Star and as a Benchmark Litigation Labor and Employment Star, and he was nominated for Benchmark Litigation’s Labor and Employment Lawyer of the Year in 2025 and 2026. His honors also include Benchmark’s 2025 Litigation Stars, selection to the Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights and Plaintiff Employment Lawyers from 2020 through 2025, Super Lawyers recognition in 2024 and 2025, the 2025 Best Lawyers in America Ones to Watch list, and Benchmark’s 2023 40 and Under list. Before joining Wigdor LLP, he served as Partner and General Counsel at Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight.

• Professional Involvement

Russell is a co-chair of the amicus committee of the New York Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association, where he has authored or co-authored amicus briefs to state and federal courts on important issues of employment law. He also serves on the NELA/NY Board and is a member of The Anti-Fraud Coalition.

• Experience

Russell’s notable outcomes include a $22.8 million customs fraud settlement for the misclassification of vitamin imports in violation of U.S. tariff laws and the False Claims Act, a separate significant settlement involving customs and tariff fraud under the False Claims Act, and a major First Circuit appellate win in a False Claims Act case involving defective medical devices. His broader results include a court-approved settlement of pay discrimination claims for a class of thousands of female pharmaceutical sales representatives, a multimillion-dollar gender-pay settlement with a large technology company on behalf of 1,800 women, a certified ERISA class alleging an Employee Stock Ownership Plan was redeemed below fair market value, a preliminary injunction reinstating a terminated Chief People Officer, and seven-figure settlements for sexual assault survivors, finance executives, and AmLaw 100 lawyers challenging discrimination.

Zach Williams, Counsel | White & Case LLP

Zach Williams is a Counsel in White & Case’s Litigation Practice Group. Based in the firm’s Washington, DC office, he represents companies in complex commercial litigation and governmental enforcement matters, with specialty experience in False Claims Act investigations and litigation.

• Education & Credentials

Zach earned his J.D. and B.A. from the University of Virginia. He is admitted in the District of Columbia and Virginia and before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Sixth Circuits and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia. He clerked for the Honorable Eric L. Clay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 2011 to 2012 and for the Honorable James R. Spencer of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia from 2010 to 2011.

• Recognition & Leadership

During his DOJ tenure, Zach was recognized for building team environments while delivering persuasive advocacy through careful preparation, and he devoted time to training case agents, investigators, and DOJ attorneys on topics such as statistical sampling in FCA cases and proving FCA damages in litigation.

• Professional Involvement

Zach recently co-authored The Coming Era of Anti-Kickback Statute Enforcement for the National Law Journal, reflecting his active monitoring of trends in False Claims Act enforcement, and his recent client alerts address DOJ’s record 2025 FCA recoveries and criminal and civil customs fraud resolutions confirming DOJ’s trade fraud priority.

• Experience

From 2015 through 2023, Zach served as a Trial Attorney in the Fraud Section of the DOJ Civil Division, with significant responsibility for advancing FCA investigations and litigation across federal programs including Medicare Part C, Medicaid, the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute, FEMA Public Assistance, Social Security, and the Department of Education incentive compensation ban. He took the lead in the dismissal of a relator’s complaint under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(2)(A), obtained reconsideration of a federal court order requiring discovery of a DOJ investigation, and enforced several Civil Investigative Demands and an Office of Inspector General subpoena, litigating multiple FCA cases through summary judgment and trial. He also conducted FIRREA investigations at DOJ, and in earlier private practice was part of a team representing a federal agency in a multi-billion dollar Securities Act suit concerning private-label residential mortgage-backed securities. Since joining White & Case, he has contributed to FCA matters involving the Department of State, the FCC, the FDA, and the intersection of the FCA and bankruptcy.

SESSION 1 – Foundations: The Law, the Agencies, and the Enforcement Framework | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

This segment introduces the legal and regulatory architecture underlying customs and trade fraud cases under the FCA. Topics include core international trade concepts such as importer of record status, entry and entry summary, valuation and assists, classification under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, and antidumping and countervailing duties; the FCA’s reverse false claims and conspiracy theories as applied to unpaid customs duties; the respective roles of the Department of Justice, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Department of Commerce in investigating and resolving these cases; and the statutory and regulatory authorities that govern them, including the Tariff Act of 1930. The segment will draw on the Perfectus settlement and other recent settlements and litigation to illustrate how these legal concepts operate in practice, and false statements concerning import requirements imposed by other federal agencies.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

SESSION 2 – Practice: Representing Relators and Defendants Through Investigation and Litigation | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

Building on the Foundations segment, this segment turns to the practical work of representing clients in customs and trade fraud matters. The majority of the discussion addresses investigation, from both sides of the docket: for relators’ counsel, evaluating a prospective whistleblower, building a fraud theory, gathering evidence, and preparing a complaint that satisfies the heightened pleading standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b); for defense counsel and in-house teams, recognizing the signs of a government investigation, managing a client’s response once allegations and the scope of a Department of Justice inquiry come to light, and weighing voluntary disclosure. The remainder of the segment addresses litigation strategy for both relators and defendants once a case proceeds, including the government’s intervention or declination decision, litigating a declined case, settlement dynamics, damages under the reverse false claims theory, the interplay between civil FCA settlements and parallel criminal proceedings, and how relator share percentages are determined and negotiated.