Whistleblower News from the Inside - October 21, 2014

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

Guardrail maker loses hundred million dollar whistleblower suit — A Texas jury finds highway guardrail maker Trinity Industries violated the False Claims Act by defrauding the government with defective guardrail systems.  The jury awarded $175M, to be tripled, in this case originally filed by whistleblower and Trinity competitor Joshua Harman.  NYT

In Memoriam: Rick Piltz, Climate Science Champion and Bush-Era Whistleblower — The Government Accountability Project “mourns the passing of our dear friend Rick Piltz, a climate science whistleblower and hero who died early Saturday morning after a fight with cancer.”  GAP

Bechtel withholds documents in whistleblower retaliation probe — The Department of Energy Inspector General says it could not determine if a whistleblower on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was fired for raising safety concerns because government contractor Bechtel National and its subcontractor URS Energy and Construction refused to provide all the documents needed in the investigation.  AP

President of Houston hospital convicted in $158M Medicare fraud scheme — A federal jury in Houston convicts Earnest Gibson III, president of Riverside General Hospital, and his son for paying kickbacks to patient recruiters and operators of group care homes in exchange for their delivery of ineligible Medicare beneficiaries for mental health services medically unnecessary or never provided.  DOJ

5 strategies to minimize whistleblower risk — “Although it may seem counterintuitive, whistleblowers can be an effective part of any company’s compliance program.”  Inside Counsel

Forex-rigging fines could reach $41B — The cost for banks to settle US and European investigations into the fixing of foreign-exchange benchmarks could reach $41B according to Citigroup analysts, with Deutsche Bank, Barclays and UBS topping the list.  Bloomberg