Whistleblower Law Blog

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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TweetThe DOL Administrative Review Board has issued a very significant en banc decision on the whistleblower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) that significantly strengthens the statute by clarifying the broad scope of protected conduct.  The ARB’s opinion in Sylvester v. Parexel International LLC, ARB No. 07-123, ALJ Nos. 2007-SOX-039, 042 (May 25, 2011) represents a substantial [...]

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TweetThe Securities and Exchange Commission is receiving praise from whistleblower advocates for issuing finalized rules that do not require whistleblowers to report fraudulent or illegal activity internally to their employer, but instead allow whistleblowers to blow the whistle direct to the SEC. The Dodd-Frank Act established a new whistleblower program at the SEC, requiring the [...]

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TweetInvestment News reported that Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y. circulated draft legislation that would require a whistleblower to first report fraud through an internal compliance program as a prerequisite to recovering an award before the whistleblower would be eligible for a reward from the SEC under the whistleblower reward provision of the Dodd-Frank Act.  TELG opposes [...]

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TweetInvestmentNews.com reported that Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., presented legislation that would require whistleblowers to first report fraud trough their employer’s internal compliance program before they would be eligible for a reward from the SEC under the Dodd-Frank Act. During a House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets hearing, the drafters related a concern that whistlblowers [...]

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TweetBen James wrote an article titled DOL Broadly Reads Protected Activity in SOX Case in which he discusses the Brown v. Lockheed Martin Corp. ruling by the DOL where the Administrative Review Board found that Lockheed Martin Corp. violated the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Andrea Brown, Lockheed employee had complained to management that the vice president [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group® attorney Jason Zuckerman was quoted in a Law360 article titled DOL Board Clarifies Scope of Whistleblower Protection regarding the DOL Administrative Review Board’s recent decision in Johnson v. Siemens Building Technologies, Inc.: Jason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of whistleblower advocacy [...]

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TweetRyan Davis wrote an article titled Courts Grapple With In-House Atty Whistleblower Suits in which he discusses how courts have had difficulty deciding a host of thorny issues that arise when in-house attorneys blow the whistle on illegal activity.  These issues often include the scope of attorney-client privilege and confidentiality among other issues, but Jason Zuckerman, a [...]

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TweetLaura Schreier wrote an article in Banker & Tradesmen titled Dodd-Frank Weighs Heavily on Mass. Whistleblower Case in which she discusses the recent U.S. District Court ruling in Pezza v. Investors Capital Corp. that Section 922(e) of the Dodd-Frank Act applies to pending cases.  Section 922(e) bans pre-dispute agreements in employment contracts that require Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblowers [...]

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TweetThe IRS Whistleblower Office paid a $4.5 million reward under its new Whistleblower Reward Program to an unidentified accountant who discovered a tax liability greater than $20 million at a Fortune 500 financial services firm.  The firm had declined to report the tax liability to the IRS after it was discovered. The whistleblower came forward [...]

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TweetAgreeing with arguments posed by The Employment Law Group® attorneys, the DOL Administrative Review Board (ARB) held that an amendment to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in Section 929A of the Dodd-Frank Act, which provides that Section 806 applies to employees of subsidiaries of publicly-traded companies, was a clarification of existing law and therefore “is not [...]

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TweetJason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, will moderate a D.C. Bar Brown Bag titled “Dodd-Frank Act: Robust Protections and Substantial Rewards for Whistleblowers” on November 9, 2010.  The panel of speakers will discuss: The whistleblower reward provisions; The scope of the new whistleblower ant-retaliation provisions; The amendments to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and [...]

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TweetJason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, will moderate a D.C. Bar Brown Bag titled “Dodd-Frank Act: Robust Protections and Substantial Rewards for Whistleblowers” on November 9, 2010.  The panel of speakers will discuss: The whistleblower reward provisions; The scope of the new whistleblower ant-retaliation provisions; The amendments to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and [...]

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TweetJason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, will lecture on “New Developments in Whistleblower Law and Effective Strategies for Prosecuting Whistleblower Retaliation Claims” on November 3, 2010 in Chicago, IL.  New whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act and other recently enacted federal whistleblower protection laws will be discussed.  He will also touch on [...]

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