Whistleblower Insider Blog

The Win-Win Of Whistleblower Hotlines And Compliance Programs

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team And yet another survey demonstrating the importance of internal whistleblower hotlines and compliance programs.  This one by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA).  These two ethics and compliance groups reached out to their membership for a reality check on how their companies fared in encouraging...

CFTC Makes Its First Whistleblower Award

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Acting Chairman Mark Wetjen has just announced that the CFTC will issue its first award to a whistleblower under the agency’s Dodd-Frank Act whistleblower program.  The whistleblower is expected to receive approximately $240,000 for providing information about violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. According to Gretchen Lowe, the Acting Director of the CFTC’s...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - May 20, 2014

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Credit Suisse agrees to guilty plea for criminal wrongdoing and $2.6B fine -- It is the first major bank to do so since Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1989.  NYT Former WellCare CEO Todd Farha sentenced to 3 years of prison for Medicaid fraud – The sentence comes on the heels of the company’s $137M whistleblower qui tam settlement and $80M settlement of a criminal...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - May 16, 2014

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Veterans launch whistleblower website -- Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America joined with the Project on Government Oversight to launch www.VAOversight.org, that allows VA employees to securely contact the two groups if they want to report mistakes or neglect in the department.  Washington Times Texas Governor Perry faces unusual criminal probe -- The investigation stems...

Privacy Trumps Freedom of Information for Google in EU

By Marlene Koury The European Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled that Google can be forced to remove private citizens' information from search results in the name of privacy. The court specifically held that Google and other search engines are "obliged to remove links to web pages that are published by third parties and contain information relating to a person from the list of results displayed following a search...

Whistleblower Sues AIG for Fraud During Government Bailout

By Jason Enzler Alex Grabcheski, the former director of human resources and operations for American International Group, has filed a False Claims Act complaint against the insurance giant alleging that it defrauded the government during the Fed’s $25 billion bailout of AIG in the wake of the financial crisis. As reported here, the lawsuit commenced in 2010 but the complaint was not unsealed until this week when...

DOJ Catch of the Week -- Sallie Mae

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team This week's Department of Justice fraud "catch of the week" goes to student loan giant Sallie Mae and its former loan-servicing arm, Navient Solutions. On Tuesday, the companies agreed to pay nearly $100 million to settle allegations that they violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) by charging members of the military excessive interest rates and late fees on student...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - May 13, 2014

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team EU court rules Google must delete personal data when asked --  The European Court of Justice rules against Google finding that people have the right to have data about them deleted from online databases.  NPR Last run on Wall Street for the Great Recession? -- The WSJ reports that the guilty plea the DOJ is seeking from Credit Suisse may signal the beginning of a series of...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - May 9, 2014

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Snapchat settles FTC charges of duping consumers on privacy -- The mobile-messaging-app maker agrees to settle charges that it misled consumers by telling them that messages would disappear, misrepresented its data-collection practices and didn't adequately protect users' personal data.  WSJ New Mexico whistleblower lawsuit on sexual harassment and fraud -- A recently-revealed...

Ask Congress to Help CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou!

By Jason Enzler If you are in DC tomorrow and have the time, consider joining with other whistleblower supporters on Capitol Hill as they visit with members of Congress to aid whistleblower John Kiriakou. Mr. Kiriakou, you may recall, was the first CIA official to come forward and publicly confirm that the U.S. was using waterboarding to torture detainees. As thanks, Mr. Kiriakou received a 30-month prison sentence...