Whistleblower Insider Blog

Too Big to Prosecute? -- HSBC Pays Record Fine for "Aiding and Abetting Drug Lords and Terrorists" But Dodges Criminal Sanctions

By Gordon Schnell The London-based mega-bank HSBC agreed last week to pay $1.9 billion to settle government charges that it violated the Bank Secrecy Act for facilitating money laundering by some of the world's nastiest drug cartels.  The charges also included alleged violations of the Trading with the Enemy Act for the bank's improper dealings with a number of countries subject to international sanctions.  Click...

Big Pharma Does Good -- Providing Access to the Poor

By Gordon Schnell There has been a lot of negative press on the fraudulent misadventures of Big Pharma.  Particularly lately.  Whether it be for falsifying studies, selling bad or ineffective drugs, concealing risky side effects, or ignoring FDA restrictions, it seems like every major drugmaker has been sued recently for putting profits before public health and safety.  You name the industry player, chances are...

George Washington University Caught Cheating in Coveted U.S. News College Rankings

By Marlene Koury The ever-controversial yet highly sought-after U.S. News and World Report best college rankings “unranked” George Washington University after GWU disclosed that it had been submitting false academic statistics to U.S. News for over a decade.  The unranking follows a voluntary disclosure earlier this month by GWU that it significantly inflated student academic achievements by overestimating the...

SEC Whistleblower Program Continues to Gain Steam With No Signs of Slowing Down

By Jason Enzler The SEC just released its second annual report on its whistleblower program (available here).  While there are no major surprises, there are some interesting facts to take away and even some trends that can be deduced.  Consistent with our report in a previous post, the number of attorneys staffing the SEC’s Whistleblower Office has doubled.  See Business Is Booming At The SEC Whistleblower...

Another Bad Report Card for the Beleaguered FDA

By Gordon Schnell The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) admittedly has a lot on its plate.  Tasked with regulating the country’s food and medicine supply, not to mention the ever-evolving array of medical devices and procedures, the FDA is the federal agency perhaps most responsible for ensuring our health and well-being.  If the agency does not perform up to task, a lot of people are affected.  So it is no...

Lesson Learned From the Petraeus Affair -- Intelligence Agents Need Whistleblower Protections Too

By Gordon Schnell and Marlene Koury (published in The Hill) As the details of the General Petraeus affair continue to unravel, there still remains a shroud of mystery over the FBI leak that prompted this whole media frenzy.  We know that FBI agent Fred Humphries was the whistleblower who first reported the agency’s investigation to House majority leader Eric Cantor.  We know that Humphries was the agent to whom...

Everything You Want to Know About the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and More

By Jason Enzler In a move that should help both businesses and those seeking to combat fraud, the SEC and DOJ jointly released a 120-page guide on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) on Wednesday.  The guide does not represent any changes to the law or new trends in its enforcement, but it does gather in one place an easy-to-read discussion of the law and its prohibitions, answers to hypothetical scenarios,...

Blackstone Medical Caught “Entertaining” Physicians in Exchange for Business

By Marlene Koury Orthofix International NV has agreed to pay $30 million to settle allegations that its subsidiary, Blackstone Medical Inc., ran a seven year long kickback scheme ranging from sham consulting agreements to providing physicians with adult “entertainment” to induce them into ordering their products.  Click here to see Department of Justice press release and here for the complaint. Blackstone...

Fudging the Studies -- Senate Report Links Medtronic to Latest Case of Ghostwriting Medical Journal Articles

By Gordon Schnell  In a scathing report it recently released, the Senate Finance Committee charged medical device manufacturer Medtronic, Inc. with engaging in some fairly dastardly deeds to promote its once top-selling bone growth product called InFuse.  The alleged misconduct centers around the company paying off doctors to author medical journal pieces that downplayed or downright ignored serious risks and...

Ratting Out the Snitch - The Troubling Underbelly of the NFL Bounty Scandalffea

By Gordon Schnell (published in Sports Business Journal) It is all about player safety and protecting the integrity of the game.  That was the central message coming out of the NFL's recent pronouncement of punishment against the four Saints players implicated in the now infamous bounty scandal -- Scott Fujita, Anthony Hargrove, Will Smith and Jonathan Vilma.  Safety, integrity, fair play -- it was like a mantra...