> Is it illegal for a private person to offer to pay someone to illegally snitch on an illegal operation?

It's not illegal to pay someone for information. If you induce them to violate an NDA, yes, it could be. But given the question "under what jurisdiction does Tether really operate" is a debatable question, I'd say it's probably risky but fine. (If you trade on that information, it could be a different story.)

> If you induce them to violate an NDA, yes, it could be.

Is violating an NDA illegal? I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, but I don't think violating an NDA is illegal as in you could go to prison for violating a law. Yes, it could open you up to legal jeopardy as in a lawsuit which could be expensive, but I don't think any laws are violated.

And if you're violating an NDA to expose some corrupt practices it seems like the NDA shouldn't hold any power.

It is not illegal for the person paying the money in most cases. He is not party to the agreement so he cannot break it, many times the buyer may not know such an NDA even exists.

It is different for the person breaking the NDA. In some jurisdictions it only civil crime, it could be criminal as well especially if other acts like insider trading are related etc.

Whistle-blowing protections are a patchwork today, A lot depends on whether you are blowing to a regulatory authority or a established media publications etc. Also how/what you share and how you got it(breaking CFAA is illegal) makes a big difference as well, also being illegal does not mean you will necessarily get prosecuted, it could be bad optics for either the DA/AG (in case criminal) or the company(for civil) to sue - Facebook as yet has not sued Haugen although they clearly have a strong case for example.

Never thought about this, but I guess you might be on the hook for fraud if you violated an agreement for profit. That is, an employee violating an NDA for profit might be considered committing fraud against their employer. It's strange - Tether seems shady but I don't think Hindenburg's offer is on firm ethical or legal ground. What if Hindenberg offered $1M for access to a private list of donors to a [prominent abortion rights organization]?

But now that I think about it, why doesn't every successful private contract enforcement action end in a public prosecution for fraud?

> That is, an employee violating an NDA for profit might be considered committing fraud against their employer.

I don't think so. Fraud would require an element of deception. Corporate espionage seems like a more probable avenue. IANAL, so I'm not sure who bears the liability here: the buyer, the seller, or both.

> What if Hindenberg offered $1M for access to a private list of donors to a [prominent abortion rights organization]?

This isn't equivalent. They're buying information, not selling it. Specifically, they're buying evidence of illegal acts.

Also, personally, I think there's a wide gap between the reasonable expectations of privacy for a business and an individual.

> But now that I think about it, why doesn't every successful private contract enforcement action end in a public prosecution for fraud?

There's usually not an intent to deceive, so it's not a crime. Also, the contract should specify the damages for violating it. The victim agreed to those penalties at the time of signing, so it wouldn't generally be in the interest of justice to add further penalties unless the behavior was so egregious as to override the victim's choice of penalty.

The accused can also often afford their own lawyers, which makes securing convictions a lot harder.

And there's a self-reinforcing penalty. If you have enough proof to get a conviction, you have enough proof to leak the leaker's name and make them unemployable.

And the criminal justice system is already stressed. These would likely end up getting plead down to something insignificant, because our justice system depends on most cases not going to trial.

There just isn't much to add from a criminal prosecution, and it would cost a lot.

An NDA would be a civil matter, I would think. It is a remedy for monetary damages, right?

Of course I have no idea if offering someone a large sum of money to violate any kind of contract is in any way illegal or even actionable in civil law since the person can always refuse the money and uphold their contract. If it made you criminally liable, wouldn’t every job offer to someone under contract with a competitor lend you in jail?

IANAL so offer money to break NDAs at your own risk.

> Of course I have no idea if offering someone a large sum of money to violate any kind of contract

Hindenburg isn't expressly offering the money for someone to break some contract or NDA. They're just offering money for information. Yes, the person with the information may have to break an NDA to share the information, but that doesn't seem like Hindenburg's problem. It's also possible that some insider with knowledge isn't under an NDA and would be willing to share information for $1M.

It's not, but tortious interference is a thing

"Induce" is a tricky word; does it imply the target has agency? I think the line is drawn when you strip the target of agency. Does offering a large amount of money constitute stripping a target of agency? It may depend on how you feel about capitalism.

It doesn't have to be an insider

it's a very small group of people with pretty well-known dubious banking connections. I won't rehash it but the CEO of their main bank is some rando with pretty poor spelling.

I doubt anyone beyond the inner circle (I guess maybe the exec assistant of the aforementioned rando might know something interesting) would know anything interesting.