Whistleblowers

Whistleblowers risk their personal and professional lives to provide information about fraud and other illegal activities. They are willing to come forward to report crimes or other violations that would otherwise go unnoticed and are invaluable in the detection of crime, fraud, and other legal violations and the enforcement of laws. Whistleblowing is effective because…

Whistleblowing is gaining recognition as an essential way to help ensure the transparency and integrity of public companies. However, encouraging insiders to disclose information about corporate wrongdoing would be extremely challenging to obtain without offering informants legal protection for doing so, since whistleblowers often face harsh reprisals for coming forward. Here’s an example: In 2021,…

A federal official has just filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that she was demoted for refusing to go over budget and pay more than was allowed to decorate Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s office. According to the sworn complaint filed with the Office of Special Counsel, the official was instructed to “find money”…

The chief medical officer of a large medical center in the southeast has just sued the hospital in a whistleblower lawsuit asserting that he fired after he testified about the hospital’s alleged improper admissions practices, patient safety concerns, and that it provided potentially fraudulent information to Medicare and Medicaid. Several different whistleblower laws exist in…

A federal jury has just found JP Morgan Chase liable for unlawful retaliation in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. According to the whistleblower lawsuit, a former wealth manager flagged a wealthy client of the bank for potential fraud and money laundering. Shortly thereafter, she was fired. The jury agreed, and found that she should be pain…

Recent employment law news reports that the trial has just begun in a whistleblower suit against a mutual funds group. A high level executive of the group asserted that after she complained that the company may have defrauded investors, the company conducted “a campaign of retaliation” against her. Whistleblower laws were designed to protect employees…

In a recent whistleblower case, a city fire inspector was awarded $1.5M after she was allegedly fired from her job after complaining about the safety of renovations at the facility where she was to work. The fire inspector asserted that her complaints led to her termination, while the city argued that she was terminated due…

Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) rendered a decision upholding an Administrative Law Judge’s pro-whistleblower decision under the Sabanes- Oxley Act (often referred to as SOX these days). The ALJ in Kalkunte v. DVI Financial Services, Inc., a case decided in 2005, held that a privately-held company acting as a contractor,…