The financial reform package creates a new whistleblower program with potentially huge cash rewards for individuals who provide information about securities law violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC will pay whistleblowers cash rewards of between 10 percent and 30 percent of any monetary sanctions in excess of $1 million that the government recovers because of whistleblowers’ assistance. Some experts say even companies with robust compliance programs face dangerous waters.

A federal judge has dismissed all charges against adult film producer John Stagliano, granting a defense motion for judgment of acquittal in the closely watched First Amendment case. Stagliano and two of his companies were charged with producing two movies and a trailer that federal prosecutors said were criminally obscene. “It’s a great day for the First Amendment

Judge Nancy Gertner of the District of Massachusetts has cut the damages verdict against copyright infringer Joel Tenenbaum for illegally downloading and distributing songs by 90 percent, to $67,500. The judge slashed the jury’s award from $22,500 for each of 30 songs Tenenbaum was found to have willfully infringed, to $2,250 per song

Responding to a lawsuit over a Justice Department report on the lawyers who wrote the so-called torture memos, the government said last week that blacked-out passages in the report should remain confidential in the interest of national security and the privacy of government lawyers. In January, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the DOJ to obtain a copy of the report, which cleared Justice Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee of any ethical wrongdoing.

In finding the defendants not guilty on all counts, D.C. Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz said that, while prosecutors had provided “powerful” evidence suggesting that one of the three either stabbed Washington attorney Robert Wone or knows who did, the government failed to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they intended to disrupt the investigation into Wone’s death.