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Entries Tagged as 'Uncategorized'

Jury Orders TD Bank to Pay $67 Million to Victims of Ponzi Scheme

January 30th, 2012 · No Comments

TweetOn January 18, 2012, a jury for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida found TD Bank liable for engaging in fraudulent activity and ordered the company to pay $67 million in damages to the victims of the Ponzi scheme. Texas firm Coquina Investments filed a lawsuit against TD Bank in May [...]

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OSHA Orders AirTran Airways to Reinstate and Pay $1 Million in Damages to Whistleblower Pilot

January 25th, 2012 · No Comments

TweetThe U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) last week ordered AirTran Airways, a subsidiary of Dallas- based Southwest Airlines Co., to reinstate a former pilot who was fired in 2007 after he filed numerous reports of mechanical malfunctions. OSHA found that AirTran violated the whistleblower provision of the Wendell H. Ford [...]

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Johnson & Johnson Subsidiary to Pay $158 Million to Settle Allegations it Misrepresented Drug Safety and Paid Physicians Kickbacks to Prescribe Risperdal

January 22nd, 2012 · No Comments

TweetOn January 19, 2012 Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, announced that it had agreed to pay $158 million to settle a Medicaid fraud lawsuit in Texas which alleged that the company improperly marketed its antipsychotic drug Risperdal causing the state to overpay for the drug. The lawsuit alleges that the company [...]

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Ohio Police Sergeant Files Whistleblower Suit Claiming Retaliation after He Disclosed Police Chief’s Misconduct

January 20th, 2012 · No Comments

TweetElmwood Place, Ohio Police Sergeant Gary Darty filed a lawsuit two weeks ago in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against Chief William Peskin, who Darty claims retaliated against him after he disclosed to local officials that Peskin had engaged in police misconduct. Darty wrote a letter to the Elmwood Place [...]

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OSHA Proposes $70,000 in Fines against Massachusetts Metals Recycling Company for Maintaining Hazardous Work Conditions

January 20th, 2012 · No Comments

TweetOn January 11, 20101, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Prolerized New England Co. LLC, a recycling company in Everett, Massachusetts, for ten serious workplace safety violations and proposed that the company pay $70,000 in fines. OSHA investigated Prolerized’s Schnitzer Northeast facility in Everett, Massachusetts after an incident in September 2011 in which [...]

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GE Healthcare Pays U.S. Government $30 Million to Settle False Claims Act Suit

January 12th, 2012 · No Comments

TweetOn December 29, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that GE Healthcare Inc. agreed to pay thirty million dollars to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit  in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against Amersham Health Inc., a holding company of  GE Healthcare. The DOJ alleged that from 2000 [...]

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OSHA Fines Labolt Farmers Grain Company for Exposing Workers to Hazardous Conditions

January 11th, 2012 · No Comments

TweetThe Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently issued 13 citations to LaBolt Farmers Grain Company, Inc. for exposing workers to unsafe conditions.  OSHA fined Labolt $95,920 for the cited violations.  LaBolt, based in South Dakota, allegedly failed to neutralize an auger, which severely injured a worker’s leg during a moving bin sweep. As a [...]

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BNY Mellon Whistleblower Provides Information Aiding Several States’ Lawsuits

January 6th, 2012 · No Comments

TweetLast month, Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System (“LAMPERS”) filed a securities class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The lawsuit filed by LAMPERS, discussed in an article published by [...]

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OSHA Orders Union Pacific to Reinstate and Pay Whistleblower Employee $300,000

January 5th, 2012 · No Comments

Tweet On December 21, 2011 the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), a division of the Department of Labor ordered Union Pacific Railroad. Co. to rehire a former employee after an unlawful termination. The employee, who remains unidentified due to OSHA policy, filed a whistleblower complaint against Union Pacific after the company suspended then fired [...]

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Michigan Federal Court Rules Severance Agreement Cannot Bar Qui Tam Claim

December 28th, 2011 · No Comments

Tweet In U.S. ex rel. McNulty v. Reddy Ice Holdings, Inc., the United States District court for the Eastern District of Michigan held that a whistleblower’s severance agreement releasing all claims against the employer does not bar qui tam claims where the government was unaware of the underlying fraudulent activity when the severance agreement was [...]

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Ranbaxy Laboratories to Pay $500 Million in Settlement with Food and Drug Administration

December 28th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetLast week, India’s largest drug manufacturer, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., announced that it had entered into a consent decree with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and had set aside a provision of $500 million to cover any liability arising out of a separate investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The consent decree comes after [...]

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SEC Charges GlaxoSmithKline Unit with Defrauding Employees in Low Valuation Stock Buybacks

December 22nd, 2011 · No Comments

TweetLast week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Stiefel Laboratories Inc. (Stiefel Labs), a subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline PLC, and the company’s former chairman and chief executive officer Charles Stiefel with defrauding employees and company shareholders by allegedly making stock buybacks at significantly undervalued prices. The SEC alleges that Stiefel Labs failed to report certain [...]

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Tax Court Protects Identity of IRS Whistleblower

December 21st, 2011 · No Comments

Tweet On December 8, 2011, the United States Tax Court issued an opinion in Whistleblower v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue granting an IRS whistleblower’s motion for a protective order permitting the whistleblower to maintain his or her anonymity.  The court stated: We conclude that granting [the whistleblower's] request for anonymity strikes a reasonable balance between [the [...]

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Whistleblower Alleges That Contractors Cut Corners at Marlins Stadium

December 20th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetRoy Fastabend, a welder and inspector, alleges that he was fired after reporting that in order to save time and money, a subcontractor cut corners in the construction of the new stadium that will be home to the Florida Marlins.  Fastabend claims to have witnessed  Mike Garcia, a fellow inspector , routinely ignoring engineering specifications [...]

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Study Finds That Three-Quarter of Americans Would Blow the Whistle on Wrongdoing in the Workplace

December 20th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetAccording to a recent study commissioned by Labaton Sucharow LLP, a securities and antitrust law firm, approximately three-quarter of Americans say that they would be willing to report wrongdoing in the workplace, as long as they were protected against retaliation, could remain anonymous, and would receive a monetary reward. The “Ethics and Action Survey,” conducted [...]

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House Panel to Hold Meetings with Air Force and Office of Special Counsel to Investigate Military Mortuary

December 13th, 2011 · No Comments

Tweet  The 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 [...]

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Dodd-Frank Act Co-Author Rep. Barney Frank to Retire after Current Term

December 1st, 2011 · No Comments

TweetThis week Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) announced that he would not seek a 17th term in office and would retire from the House of Representatives at the end of his current term. Rep. Frank served as the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee from 2007 to 2011 and co-authored the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street [...]

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Marine Corps Whistleblower Has Top-Secret Security Clearance Reinstated

November 28th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetEarlier this month, the Navy Department in charge of security clearances reinstated the top secret security clearance of Franz Gayl, a civilian science and technology advisor for the Marine Corps. Gayl was placed on administrative leave for criticizing military leaders and allegedly stealing classified information. According to the Associated Press: Beginning in 2007, Gayl accused [...]

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DCAA Whistleblower Promoted After Enduring Years of Retaliation

November 28th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetThe U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) announced its conclusion last week that the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) violated the Whistleblower Protection Act when it retaliated against Diem-Thi Le for blowing the whistle on fraudulent DCAA practices. Ms. Le worked for the DCAA as a Senior Auditor for 17 years. In September 2005 Le [...]

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Truck Driver Awarded Back Pay and Damages in Surface Transportation Assistance Act Whistleblower Claim

November 4th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetCynthia Ferguson, an independent truck driver with over 15 years of experience, recently prevailed in a retaliation claim against New Prime Inc., a Missouri-based trucking company, under the whistleblower provisions of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA). New Prime terminated Ferguson after she refused to follow its dispatcher’s order to continue driving on a hazardous [...]

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TELG Principals Publish Article in California Lawyer

October 14th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetThe Employment Law Group® principal attorneys David Scher and R. Scott Oswald wrote an article entitled “Blowing the Whistle,”  which appeared in the October 2011 edition of California Lawyer.  In the article, Scher and Oswald discuss the California Whistleblower Protection Act (CWPA), referring to it as a “robust law that…has limitations and administrative hurdles.” They [...]

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Tags: California Whistle Blower Protection Act · The Employment Law Group, PC · Uncategorized

DOL Orders Union Pacific Railroad to Pay Whistleblowers more than $615,000

September 9th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetThe U.S. Department of Labor used its authority under OSHA Section 11(c) of the Discrimination against Employees under OSHA Act of 1970 to order Union Pacific Railroad to pay a total of $400,000 in punitive damages, $90,315 in compensatory damages, $34,900 in attorney fees, and more than $90,000 in back wages to three whistleblowers.  Union [...]

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Webinar: Using New Developments In Whistleblower Laws To Your Client’s Advantage

February 17th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetWebinar: Using New Developments In Whistleblower Laws To Your Client’s Advantage March 10, 2011 11:00 a.m. Pacific/2:00p.m. ET/1:00p.m. CT/ 12:00 MT Congress recently enacted several new robust whistleblower reward and protection laws, and strengthened existing whistleblower laws. This webinar will address new developments in whistleblower law, including recent decisions strengthening the rights of federal employee [...]

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IRS Broadens Opportunities for Whistleblower Rewards

January 19th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued new rules that now permit whistleblowers to be rewarded for reporting a company’s illegal tax scheme that leads to ill-gotten tax refunds or credits.  Under the IRS’s whistleblower program, whistleblowers can be rewarded up to 30% of the funds recouped in return for reporting tax fraud.  For more [...]

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President Obama Signs Food Safety Bill Protecting Whistleblowers Who Report Contaminated Food

January 4th, 2011 · No Comments

TweetToday President Obama has signed 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 outbreaks [...]

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