Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm was recently interviewed by Law360 regarding the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) announcement last week that it plans to establish an a Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee dedicated to improving OSHA’s whistleblower protection efforts. The proposed committee would fulfill and [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm, was recently interviewed by Law360 regarding the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), which the U.S. Senate unanimously passed last week. If also passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the WPEA would expand whistleblower protections against retaliation by making it easier for whistleblowers [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group® law firm is proud to announce that two of its principal attorneys – Adam Augustine Carter and Nicholas Woodfield – have been selected as 2012 Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers. Adam Augustine Carter has spent most of his 20 year career as a litigator representing employees and whistleblowers.  Mr. Carter has been [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm was recently interviewed by Law360 on a recent Department of Labor Administrative Review Board (ARB) decision establishing a lighter burden of proof for whistleblowers under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). The decision, Zinn v. American Commercial Lines Inc., ARB No. 10-029, ALJ No. 2009-SOX-25 [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm, was recently interviewed by Law360 and provided commentary on a report that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may have inadvertently exposed the identity of a corporate whistleblower.  Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC had unintentionally revealed the [...]

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TweetAccording to The Employment Law Group® law firm’s managing principal, R. Scott Oswald, “2011 marked a sea change for whistleblowers at the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB).”  The Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal recently published an article by Mr. Oswald which discusses the impact of recent ARB decisions on whistleblower protection and describes why “2011 was [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm will serve as a panelist in an upcoming presentation to the District of Columbia Bar on April 18, 2012. In the seminar – “Recent Developments in Whistleblower Rules: Opportunities and Risks” – Mr. Oswald will speak as part of a panel comprised of [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group®, was recently interviewed and quoted by Workforce Management Magazine on the subject of expanded whistleblower protection under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In 2010, Dodd-Frank amended the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and expanded whistleblower protections to include “nationally recognized statistical rating organizations” [...]

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TweetIn detailing its recent announcement of a major restructuring of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Office of the Whistleblower Protection Program, the U.S. Department of Labor thanked The Employment Law Group® for its input in the program restructuring project. The acknowledgement came in a Department of Labor report entitled “OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program [...]

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TweetDave Scher, Principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm, was recently interviewed and quoted by Lawyers USA, a national newspaper focused on news and trends in litigation, as well as law practice management. Commenting on recent media attention given to corporate rule-breaking and the employees who report it, Mr. Scher noted that “[as] retaliation claims [...]

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TweetOn December 22, 2011, the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) issued a 3-2 en banc decision that limits the application of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) outside of the United States. The case, Villanueva v. Core Laboratories, ARB No. 09-108, ALJ No. 2009-SOX-006 (ARB December 22, 2011), centered around a whistleblower complaint filed by [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm will serve as a panelist in an upcoming presentation to the Northern Virginia Chapter of the Federal Bar Association on March 7, 2012. The topic of the Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminar is “Blowing the Whistle in 2012: New Developments in Qui Tam [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, Managing Principal of the The Employment Law Group® law firm, was recently interviewed by Federal Times, a weekly newspaper focused on providing insight into issues affecting U.S. government managers and other decision makers. On January 25, 2012, six current and former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employees filled a lawsuit in the [...]

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Tweet Morris Jones of Capital Insider interviewed The Employment Law Group® law firm attorney Adam Augustine Carter on the recent changes in whistleblower and employment law that will affect employees in 2012. The points Mr. Carter makes are that: There are almost 2 million home health aides and in-home care providers working in our country. Now with [...]

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TweetThe U.S Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is suing RockTenn Corporation, a consumer packaging manufacturer based in Norcross, Georgia for allegedly violating whistleblower protection laws at its Fernandina Beach plant.  The lawsuit alleges that an employee at the plant had repeatedly raised serious and credible safety concerns with managers, and that [...]

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TweetLawyer Monthly has selected The Employment Law Group® law firm as its 2011 Labor & Employment Law Firm of the Year. Lawyer Monthly is an international legal publication that tracks legal news across many different practice areas and jurisdictions around the world. This month’s edition of Lawyer Monthly lists the publication’s Law Firm of the [...]

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TweetIn wake of the child sexual assault allegations against former Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky that have shocked the nation, lawmakers across the U.S. are moving quickly to tighten up rules on who must report the sexual abuse of a child.  State legislatures are likely going to debate whether new laws are needed to [...]

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TweetOn October 14, 2011, Crain’s Detroit Business published an article titled “Are there enough private crimes in Michigan to warrant beefing up the state’s false claims act?” in which The Employment Law Group® law firm attorney R. Scott Oswald states: Having whistleblowers in government and the health care sector will ensure that individuals and corporations [...]

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TweetAccording to a Department of Justice Press Release, Oracle Corp. and Oracle America Inc. have agreed to pay $199.5 million plus interest for failing to meet their contractual obligations to the General Services Administration (GSA). This settlement relates to a contract Oracle entered into in 1998 to sell software licenses and technical support to government [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group’s © Managing Principal R. Scott Oswald and former Principal Jason Zuckerman have published a whistleblower article in the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. Daily Labor Report titled “D.C.’s Amended Whistleblower Protection Act: The Gold Standard for Public Sector Whistleblower Protection.” The article highlights changes to Washington D.C.’s recently amended Whistleblower Protection [...]

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TweetLaw360 quoted Nicholas Woodfield, a principal attorney at The Employment Law Group® law firm, regarding the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s request for an additional $6.1 million to fund 45 more investigators for its whistleblower programs.   Mr. Woodfield stated: More efficient investigations are among OSHA’s goals, but unless the workload for investigators gets lighter, [...]

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Tweet The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced in a press release significant improvements to its Whistleblower Protection Program.   OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels explained: The ability of workers to speak out and exercise their legal rights without fear of retaliation is crucial to many of the legal protections and [...]

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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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TweetIn Saunders v. District of Columbia [link to opinion], Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia held that the Federal False Claims Act has a three year statute of limitations when bringing a lawsuit against the District of Columbia.  Congress recently passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which included a [...]

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TweetLaw360 Quoted The Employment Law Group® principal attorney Jason Zuckerman on the DOL ARB’s decision in Sylvester v. Parexel International LLC, which held that the Twombly/Iqbal heightened pleading standards do not apply to SOX claims initiated with OSHA and that a complainant need only express a “reasonable belief” of a violation to engage in SOX-protected activity.   See the [...]

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