Our Law Firm Can Help You to Report Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Fraud
Do you have insider knowledge of fraud against the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program?
- Are you an executive whose company misrepresented its payroll numbers in order to get a PPP loan, for instance?
- Or can you show that your employer has misused SBA-loaned funds — by devoting more than 40 percent to non-payroll expenses, as an example?
- Have you been warned to stay quiet about such fraudulent practices?
If you're a PPP whistleblower, the law is on your side.
Federal laws prohibit retaliation against truth-tellers who blow the whistle on employers who defraud the Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA). And some statutes offer monetary rewards for turning in wrongdoers. Under the False Claims Act (FCA), for instance, the government may reward a PPP whistleblower with up to 30 percent of the recovered funds.
The Paycheck Protection Program was created to help small businesses keep workers employed during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering bank-mediated, SBA-funded loans that may be forgiven later. Some unscrupulous companies have applied for PPP loans even though they don’t qualify, often by making false certifications in their applications, misrepresenting ownership, miscounting employees, and hiding their true corporate structure. The SBA program is not intended for major corporations, yet some of these employers have sucked up capital that is desperately needed by true small businesses.
If you’ve witnessed PPP fraud and want to speak up, there are laws that may protect and even reward you.