Whistleblower Group

Expanding Protections for Antitrust Whistleblowers -- Help is On the Way

By Gordon Schnell  Two U.S. senators this week proposed legislation that would for the first time extend whistleblower protections to those reporting on violations of the antitrust laws.  The bill, introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) as the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act, would amend the Antitrust Criminal Penalties Enforcement and Reform Act (ACPERA).  This...

Partnering With Former Fraudsters and Conflicted Parties to Root Out Health Care Fraud -- Is the Government Letting the Fox Guard the Hen House?

By Marlene Koury The government announced last week that it would be partnering with Amerigroup in its new public-private partnership to prevent health care fraud.  If “Amerigroup” and “fraud” in the same sentence sound all too familiar, it is not because of the company's track record in fighting fraud.  Rather, it is likely because Amerigroup paid $225 million in 2008 to resolve claims that it defrauded...

Here We Go Again -- Johnson & Johnson to Pay Upwards of $2.2 Billion to Settle Civil and Criminal Charges

By Jason Enzler Only a few weeks after GlaxoSmithKline's blockbuster $3 billion settlement over its healthcare fraud misdeeds relating to Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia, Johnson & Johnson is joining the party with a multi-billion dollar settlement of its own.   Though it has yet to be finalized, the Wall Street Journal reported that Johnson & Johnson and the DOJ have reached an agreement requiring the company to...

Wells Fargo Settles for Discriminatory Lending Practices

By Marlene Koury Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $175 million to settle government charges that it discriminated against qualified African-American and Latino borrowers in its mortgage lending from 2004 through 2009.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the settlement on July 12, 2012, making it the second largest fair lending settlement in the DOJ’s history after its December 2011 settlement with Bank of...

FDAGate -- The Latest Lapse in Government Enforcement

By Gordon Schnell In what quickly has become the most recent "gate" scandal in Washington, the evidence continues to mount that the FDA acted to stifle whistleblowers within its own ranks.  It all began several years ago when a half-dozen FDA scientists and doctors objected to certain imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies because of the high levels of radiation they believed the equipment emitted.  The...

Big Pharma Strikes Again – Glaxo Settles Largest Healthcare Fraud Case in History

By Jason Enzler Earlier this month, GlaxoSmithKline entered into the largest settlement in healthcare fraud history -- a whopping $3 billion -- to settle a broad range of criminal and civil charges involving the company’s drugs and marketing practices.  Glaxo’s settlement easily surpasses the previous record for healthcare fraud, Pfizer’s $2.3 billion payout in 2009 to settle criminal and civil charges for...

The IRS Whistleblower Office -- A New Beginning or Just a Lot of Lip Service

By Gordon Schnell Since its inception in 2007, the IRS Whistleblower Office has been subject to some fairly withering attacks.  And for good reason.  It was supposed to revamp the IRS whistleblower system, encouraging tipsters to flood in and help the government identify all of those tax cheats and their billions of dollars in unpaid taxes each year.  The whistleblowers have certainly done their part.  They...

Business is Booming at the SEC Whistleblower Office as Tips Continue to Flood In

By Jason Enzler The SEC’s Whistleblower Office is busy these days as tips continue to stream into the agency.  Thomas Sporkin, the chief of the SEC’s Office of Market Intelligence, the unit that assesses the credibility of these tips, recently stated that the agency is receiving an average of seven tips per day, with about 2 or 3 of them meriting investigation.  Many of these tips are coming from senior...

Low Scores for Government Efforts to Clean Up Medicare/Medicaid Fraud

By Gordon Schnell The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, just issued a relatively unflattering report on the government's internal efforts to clean up Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  According to the report, the government makes more than $60 billion in improper Medicare and Medicaid payments every year because of fraud, waste and abuse of the system.  This comes...