Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetPresident Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal 2014 includes good news for whistleblowers: Under his plan, the law finally would protect people who report tax cheats to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

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TweetLast month President Obama issued a landmark Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-19), which will finally provide members of the national security and intelligence community with protection against retaliation when they blow the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse. The Directive will protect employees of the intelligence community by prohibiting retaliatory actions affecting employees’ security clearances and [...]

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TweetToday the U.S. House of Representative enacted the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA). The U.S. Senate will likely enact it through unanimous consent in the near future.  Below is a summary of the legislation. The Employment Law Group® (TELG) supports the passage of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), S. 743 / H.R. 3289. This [...]

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TweetThe Huffington Post reported earlier this month that two elite U.S. Air Force pilots, Major Jeremy Gordon and Captain Josh Wilson, are seeking protection under federal whistleblower law for revealing safety concerns with the F-22 Raptor and for refusing to fly the $400 million jets.  The two pilots risked their careers by appearing in uniform [...]

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TweetAccording to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Mary Schapiro, the SEC’s new whistleblower program is already providing “significant benefits” one year after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In a letter sent to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), co-author of Dodd-Frank, SEC Chairman Schapiro argued that recent calls to [...]

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TweetOn Monday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it collected more than $3 billion in judgments and settlements of fraud cases under the False Claims Act (FCA) for fiscal year 2011. This marks the second consecutive year in which the DOJ exceeded $3 billion in recoveries and brings the total recovered since 2009 to [...]

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TweetKV Pharmaceutical (KV), the parent company for Ethex Corporation (Ethex), this month agreed to pay $17 million to settle claims that Ethex of violated the False Claims Act when it allegedly reported false information to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). According to the complaint filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), Ethex [...]

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TweetThe House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is scheduled to meet with representatives of the U.S. Air Force and Office of Special Counsel in the next few days to investigate the mishandling of remains at the military mortuary in Dover, Delaware. The committee requested that by December 9th, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta submit a [...]

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TweetOne of the nation’s largest privately held mortgage companies, Allied Home Mortgage Corporation (Allied), and two of its top executives, CEO Jim Hodge and Executive VP Jeanne Stell, are facing scrutiny for providing false loan certifications to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Peter Belli, a former regional manager at Allied, filed suit [...]

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TweetIn Hasan v. Enercon Services, Inc., the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) overturned a summary decision order in favor of whistleblower Syed Hasan who alleges that Enercon Services, Inc. refused to hire him because he is a whistleblower. Hasan is a structural engineer who was previously discriminated against by his former employer, American [...]

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TweetOn June 30, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in United States ex rel. Wilkins v. United Health Group  overturned the decision of the lower court and held in favor of whistleblowers Charles Wilkins and Daryl Willis.  The whistleblowers allege that United Health Group (UHG) provided kickbacks to those [...]

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TweetLaw360 quoted The Employment Law Group® Principal Jason Zuckerman in an article regarding the U.S. Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board’s en banc decision in Sylvester v. Parexel International on May 25, which clarified the broad scope of protected conduct for Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) whistleblowers.  Jason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group, which [...]

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Tweet Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced bill S. 586 titled the Congressional Whistleblower Protection Act of 2011, which would extend whistleblower protections to congressional employees. In a press release, Grassley stated: Whistleblowers in the executive branch have helped me do my job of oversight. It’s simply not fair, nor is it good governance, for Congress [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group® attorney Jason Zuckerman was quoted in an Ammerican Bar Association article titled SEC is Giving Whistle-blower Protection One Last Lick: “After the Bernard Madoff scandal broke the SEC had a lot of egg on its face,” says Jason Zuckerman, principal of [T]he Employment Law Group, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that represents [...]

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TweetSenator McCaskill (with Senator Jim Webb co-sponsoring) re-introduced to the Senate a bill titled the Non-Federal Employee Whistleblower Protection Act of 2011 which would extend whistleblower protections to employees of federal government contractors and employees of institutions receiving federal grants, including state and local governments.  Whistleblowers who report fraud, waste, and abuse would be protected from [...]

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TweetCongress has passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which imposes stricter food safety standards and grants the Food and Drug Administration greater authority to regulate tainted food and had previously passed the Senate.  President Obama is expected to sign the FSMA into law.   The FMSA was prompted in part by numerous instances of fatal [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald and Jason Zuckerman, principals at The Employment Law Group® law firm, published an article in the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund Quarterly Review outlining recently enacted federal whistleblower protections and whistleblower reward statutes.  Recognizing the critical role that whistleblowers play in exposing financial fraud, threats to public health and safety, and fraud [...]

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TweetToday the Senate passed S. 510 the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which imposes stricter food safety standards and grants the Food and Drug Administration greater authority to regulate tainted food.  The FMSA was prompted in part by numerous instances of fatal food contamination that revealed insufficient regulation and oversight of food production, including [...]

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TweetAccording to an article in Politico, the Congressional Whistleblower Protection Act introduced by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) has yet to be reported to the full Senate and continues to languish in the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.  Similar to the Whistleblower Protection Act which protects most federal employees who [...]

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TweetOn August 13, 2010, The Employment Law Group® filed an amicus curiae brief in Johnson v. Siemens Building Technologies, Inc., on behalf of the Government Accountability Project, National Employment Lawyers Association, and National Whistleblowers Center arguing that Section 929A of the Dodd-Frank Act clarifies and confirms existing law on the scope of coverage under SOX, [...]

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TweetThe House of Representatives passed the Offshore Oil and Gas Worker Whistleblower Protection Act, which prohibits oil and gas companies from terminating or discriminating against offshore employees who report unsafe conditions or refuse to work in unsafe conditions.  Closing a significant loophole, the legislation extends whistleblower protections currently in place for onshore oil and gas [...]

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TweetRecognizing that robust whistleblower protection is critical to preventing another financial crisis, Congress included in the Dodd-Frank financial services reform bill (H.R. 4173) numerous provisions designed to encourage whistleblowing and to provide robust protection from retaliation.  These provisions create monetary awards for whistleblowers who provide original information to the SEC or CFTC, strengthen the whistleblower [...]

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TweetOn June 29, 2010, a discussion draft of new federal legislation to increase mine safety was released.  The legislation, introduced by Senators Harkin, Murray, and Rockefeller is intended to “improve compliance with mine and occupational safety and health laws, empower workers to raise safety concerns, prevent future mine and other workplace tragedies, [and] establish rights [...]

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TweetTELG Principals Scott Oswald and Jason Zuckerman published an article in the May 27, 2010 edition of Law360 titled “Whistleblower Protection In The Finance Reform Bill.”  The article discusses the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (S. 3217), which the Senate passed on May 20 by a vote of 59-39.   The bill, which we [...]

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TweetOn May 20, 2010, the Senate passed the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (S. 3217) by a vote of 59-39.  The bill, which is the largest overhaul of financial services regulation since the New Deal, contains several new whistleblower protection provisions and strengthens the whistleblower protection provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).   This [...]

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