A federal magistrate judge in Massachusetts has not yet decided whether a Beaumont, Texas, lawyer should receive one-third of his clients’ whistleblower awards for informing authorities about the dumping of oily sludge in U.S. coastal waters and is questioning whether the lawyer’s clients should have received money for their efforts.
At a Nov. 19 hearing in Boston, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings ordered federal prosecutors in the District of Massachusetts to submit a brief to him addressing the question of whether Zachary J. Hawthorn’s two clients provided information that led to the conviction of Overseas Shipholding Group Inc. (OSG) for violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution From Ships (APPS), 33 U.S.C. �1908(a).
