Tag Archives: whistleblowers
Ninth Circuit Decision Makes it Easier for Whistleblowers to Bring Qui Tam Actions
In a new, important development for how False Claims Act cases will proceed, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned precedent that had limited whistleblowers’ ability to recover money reimbursed to the federal government under the FCA to a more significant extent than a large number of other circuits. The ruling came in the […]
Manager at Philadelphia VA Uses Twitter to Threaten Whistleblowers
Veterans Administration locations across the country have been the subject of a great deal of scrutiny over the past year and half. A recent report reveals a manager at the Philadelphia Department of Veterans Affairs’ regional office tweeted out threats to whistleblowers last year on the same day investigators arrived at the location to inspect […]
NDAA Continues to Provide Whistleblowers Much-Needed Protection
July 2015 marked the second anniversary of when the whistleblower protection statutes of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) went into effect. The law has provided a number of new protections for whistleblowers, shielding them from retaliation by employers — especially from government grantees and contractors. So what types of protections does the NDAA […]
US Marshals Whistleblowers Claim Officials Use Freedom of Information Act for Retaliation
Multiple whistleblowers have come forward from the U.S. Marshals Service, claiming that leadership within the agency uses requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to retaliate against individuals because they sought to report various abuses of power. Among the claims made by the whistleblowers is that the U.S. Marshals Service has a major problem […]
SEC Launches Investigation into Employment Contracts that Prevent Whistleblowing
A February 25 article in the Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will begin investigating the kinds of agreements that certain companies make with their employees. The article states that the agency has already sent out several requests to different companies for years’ worth of employment contracts, nondisclosure agreements […]
Court Rules That Outing a Whistleblower Constitutes Retaliation
When whistleblowers intend to remain in their company after alerting authorities to wrongdoing, it is imperative that they are able to maintain their privacy so that they would not be the victims of retaliation by other employees. In a case involving a whistleblower for Halliburton Co., a court ruled that a company that reveals the […]
Opinions on Whistleblowers Have Changed Over Time
Now that there are more protections available for whistleblowers than ever before, especially whistleblowers in federal agencies, opinions on the act of whistleblowing have also begun to shift in a more positive light. One recent letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal takes offense to the idea of whistleblower lawyers being similar to […]
Bank of America Whistleblower Wins $57 Million Decision
In what is being considered a record, landmark case, a former bank executive at Countrywide Financial (now owned by Bank of America Corporation) was awarded $57 million for exposing the presence of fraud in the company’s mortgage practices. Edward O’Donnell initially filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Countrywide, accusing the company of defrauding mortgage finance […]
D.C. Circuit Court Expands Privilege in Internal Corporate Investigations
There are numerous federal regulations requiring investigations into possible fraud, related to both mandatory disclosure and simply performing some fact gathering while seeking legal advice. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently ruled in In re Kellogg Brown & Root that investigations into possible fraud associated with these regulations are privileged. In […]
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 […]
