The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a whistleblower has earned an award of more than $1 million for providing the SEC with new information and substantial corroborating documentation of a securities law violation by a registered entity that impacted retail customers.
“Today’s award reflects the impact that whistleblower information can have in uncovering violations that harm the retail investor,” said Jane Norberg, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower. “W...
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Author: WhistleBlowerStaff
Why the Scariest Nuclear Threat May Be Coming from Inside the White House
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis/amp
What we know about Hanford we know mainly from whistle-blowers who worked inside the nuclear facility—and who have been ostracized by their community for threatening the industry in a one-industry town. (“Resistance to understanding a threat grows with proximity,” writes Brown.) One hundred and forty-nine of the tanks in the Hanford farms are made of a single shell of a steel ill-designed to contain highly...
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Former Cardiovascular Systems Inc. Employee Awarded $25 million in Whistleblower Lawsuit
A Los Angeles jury has awarded more than $25 million to a whistleblower who was fired for reporting what he considered illegal sales tactics and surgeon kickbacks by a Minnesota medical device company.
Steven Babyak won his lawsuit against former employer, St. Paul-based Cardiovascular Systems Inc., for both whistleblower retaliation and wrongful termination in Los Angeles Superior Court. The jury on Monday awarded $2.7 million for past and future wage loss, and $22.4 million in punitive dama...
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Walgreens Pays $9.86 Million Resolving Whistleblower Claims Of Fraud Against California’s Medi-Cal
Berger & Montague, P.C. announced today the settlement of a False Claims Act case against Walgreen Co. (Walgreens) for $9.86 million to resolve allegations that Walgreens falsely billed California's Medicaid Program, Medi-Cal. The settlement resolves allegations raised in two whistleblower lawsuits brought under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. Berger & Montague represented former Walgreens pharmacy technician, Debbie G. Rinehart, who was one of the two individ...
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$5.4 Million Awarded to Former Wells Fargo Manager Whistleblower
A federal regulator on Monday ordered Wells Fargo to pay $5.4 million to a former manager who said he was fired in 2010 after reporting to his supervisors and to a bank ethics hotline what he suspected was fraudulent behavior.
The bank must also rehire him, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said.
The $5.4 million, intended to cover back pay, compensatory damages and legal fees, is the largest individual award ever ordered through OSHA’s whistle-blower...
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UnitedHealth shares fall after Justice Department joins Medicare whistleblower lawsuit
Shares of U.S. health insurer UnitedHealth dropped Friday following news that the Justice Department has joined a lawsuit filed by a former executive. The lawsuit accuses the company of overcharging Medicare by hundreds of millions of dollars.
UnitedHealth stock, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, ended the session about 3.7 percent lower, closing at $157.62 a share.
Shares of several other insurers also fell. They include Aetna, Humana,and WellCare, which whistle blower Benjamin P...
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Whistleblower Claims Pilot Flying J Fraud Cheated Federal Government
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Pilot Flying J diesel rebate fraud scheme cheated not just trucking companies across the U.S. but the federal government, according to the man who says he helped crack the case.
John Verble, a former broker at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney's Knoxville branch office, says he was fired in 2013 for working with the FBI as an informant in the Pilot case and for alerting authorities to other questionable dealings he says he stumbled upon during his work there. The brokerage ...
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$1.4 Million Settlement from SandRidge Energy for Retaliating Against Internal Whistleblower
An oil-and-gas company that allegedly retaliated against an internal whistleblower and used illegal separation agreements agreed to pay the SEC a $1.4 million penalty.
Oklahoma-based SandRidge Energy Inc. fired an employee who raised concerns inside the company about how it calculated its publicly reported oil-and-gas reserves.
SandRidge then put language in the employee’s separation agreement that prohibited participating in any government investigation or disclosing information potenti...
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OSC Finds Retaliation against BIA Whistleblower
The Office of Special Counsel says it has confirmed a complaint of whistleblower retaliation in a case unusual in that the personnel actions at issue were ordered at a high agency level.
While whistleblower reprisal complaints commonly arise from actions taken by the employees’ supervisors, in this case the supervisors not only did not advocate the personnel action but actively opposed it, the OSC said in its announcement.
The case involved an employee who along with a coworker disclosed that ...
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Charge against ex-Iowa judge is retaliation, supporters say
IOWA CITY, Ia. — Authorities charged a former Iowa judge with insurance fraud days after she appeared in court to challenge her two-year-old firing over the same allegation — timing that her supporters call retaliation.
Former Administrative Law Judge Susan Ackerman joined her union, AFSCME Iowa Council 61, in a Polk County courtroom on Dec. 16 as the union sought to overturn an error-riddled arbitration decision that upheld her termination.
Four days later, Ackerman was told a warrant had bee...
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