Whistleblower Insider Blog

Judge Posner Strikes a Small Win for Class Actions

By Jason Enzler Earlier this week a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, led by legal luminary Judge Richard Posner, took the relatively rare step of reversing a district court’s denial of a motion for class certification.  The opinion in Phillips v. Asset Acceptance, LLC rejected the lower court’s ruling that would have limited the reach of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and narrowly...

Bring in the Whistleblowers and Pay Them – The Next Logical Step in Advancing Antitrust Enforcement

By Gordon Schnell (Published in Competition Policy International) Corporate leniency.  It is for most countries these days the key foundation to cartel enforcement.  Encouraging the wrongdoers to come forward, confess their antitrust transgressions, expose their co-conspirators, and receive absolution or some form of leniency in return.  By most accounts, these programs have worked fairly well.  Some would...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - December 3, 2013

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Air Force allegedly using stealth whistleblower program – The “secret system” of informants is reportedly being used at the Air Force Academy with “FBI-style tactics” to expose wrongdoing, but questions emerge on how the whistleblowers are treated.  Fox Hospital pricing continues to soar – Costing patients more than $4,000 per day and topping $500 for a single...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - November 29, 2013

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Citigroup’s latest PR angle: singing – The scandal-plagued bank will have a team participate in the popular UK singing show called “The Choir” to show “we're not a bunch of monsters hiding behind our screens and planning financial apocalypse.”  WSJ Independent commission calls for greater whistleblower protections in UK – The commission, set up by the charity...

Attack of the Superbugs -- Time for the Government to Stand Up Against the Antibiotics Feeding Frenzy

By Gordon Schnell

The warnings keep coming.   The studies keep warning.  We are overdoing it on antibiotics.  They are over-prescribed by our doctors.  They are over-supplied to our farm animals.  And we seem to be heading in exactly the wrong direction. It was only two months ago that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the government watchdog of our long-term health and safety, came out...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - November 25, 2013

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Match.com sued for RICO fraud – The class action suit charges the online dating service with using fake “profiles” to lure in customers in "one of the biggest conspiracies ever executed on the Internet."  Courthouse News Whistleblower claims RBS purposely put clients out of business – The charges by the whistleblower, a former legal advisor to the bank, follows an...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - November 22, 2013

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Caterpillar probed for ocean dumping to hide evidence – The heavy equipment maker is being investigated for possibly dumping train parts in scheme to bill railroad companies for parts not needing to be replaced.  WSJ SEC says FCPA is “fertile ground” for Dodd-Frank whistleblowers – So says Andrew Ceresney, Co-Director of SEC Enforcement, in his keynote address at...

A Sunny Report from the SEC Whistleblower Office

By Marlene Koury The 2013 numbers are in for the Dodd-Frank whistleblower program and they are encouraging.  The SEC released its 2013 Annual Report on the program earlier this week which revealed that tips – and rewards – have increased since 2012.   The young whistleblower program is gaining steam and if it stays on course, it will no doubt be hugely successful in the coming years, perhaps even rivaling...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - November 19, 2013

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team JP Morgan agrees to record $13B settlement – The  historic settlement ends the slew of investigations and lawsuits over the bank’s shady mortgage practices that precipitated the financial crisis. WSJ SEC scores high marks in its annual whistleblower report – More whistleblower tips, more whistleblower awards, and all indications the SEC Whistleblower Office will only...

Whistleblower News from the Inside - November 15, 2013

Sexual misconduct in the Secret Service – Whistleblowers tell Senate Homeland Security committee of rampant misbehavior within the agency over the past few years.  Washington Post US investigates alleged currency trade cartel – Barclays, RBS, Citigroup and other major banks are suspected of working together to raise the cost of foreign currencies for the benefit of their own investments.  NYT Bribery at...