Monthly Archives: July 2014
SEC Rulings Remind Whistleblowers of the Importance of Procedure
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for the bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing. — Thomas Sowell Proper procedures are of the utmost importance for whistleblowers seeking to gain legal protections and financial rewards for their disclosures. The mere fact that you provided information that saved the government millions of […]
DC Circuit Maintains Protections for Internal Investigations
Supposing is good, but finding out is better. ― Mark Twain Many of the privileges the law recognizes against the compelled disclosure of information exist in order to promote candor. For instance, attorney-client privilege exists because people must be able to remain open and honest with their legal counsel without fear that the substance of […]
Supreme Court Poised to Hear TSA Whistleblower Case
The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) plays a crucial role in our national safety infrastructure. Yet the agency has been subjected to significant criticism — and even been the butt of jokes — for the last several years. In 2003, Air Marshal Robert MacLean went to the media to expose what he felt was a risky […]
Food Safety Whistleblower Regulations on the Way
Otto von Bismarck once said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Fortunately, the government that makes the laws does want to see the sausage being made and, as such, has instituted new regulations that protect employees in various levels of the food industry from facing retaliation for reporting […]
Texas Medicaid Fraud Recovery Passes $400 Million Thanks to Whistleblowers
Operated jointly by federal and state agencies, Medicaid is one of the largest and most complex governmental undertakings in the United States. Not surprisingly, it also provides a breeding ground for fraud, primarily from unscrupulous medical facilities and providers who overbill, double-bill, bill for services never rendered and perform all manner of other shenanigans in […]
Shady Record Keeping Not Just in the VA
The nation was recently stunned by the revelation that Department of Veterans Affairs administrators were manipulating dates on records to conceal the unreasonable wait times veterans seeking medical care were forced to endure. Unfortunately, this type of conduct may be more common throughout government than we could have imagined. The Texas Supreme Court has recently […]
Internal Revenue Service Reveals 2013 Whistleblower Figures
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” In the more than two centuries since Benjamin Franklin expressed those words, taxes have become perhaps even more of a certainty. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) remains one of the most feared and dreaded organs of the federal government. However, even […]
New Whistleblower Provisions Under the Affordable Care Act
A great deal of controversy and media attention has certainly surrounded the Affordable Care Act (ACA), both before and after its passage. However, little if any of that attention concerned the whistleblower provisions contained within the legislation. Indeed, even now as the law is in full swing, most people likely do not realize that the […]
Supreme Court Extends SOX Whistleblower Protection to Contractors
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” Following a rash of financial calamities largely caused by risky and illegal conduct within publicly traded companies, Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) to shine light into corporate boardrooms and corridors and protect the employees of publicly-traded […]
