Whistleblower News From The Inside -- May 18, 2018
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
GlaxoSmithKline Faces Fresh Whistleblower Allegations – GlaxoSmithKline is facing fresh criticism over the way it treats whistleblowers after a lawsuit was filed by a former senior technical lead claiming he was harassed and wrongfully dismissed after repeatedly warning over issues with the pharmaceutical giant’s computer fleet. The case piles more pressure on Glaxo to review its policy for whistleblowers, after a series of high-profile claims against the company over the last decade.
In the lawsuit, Thomas Reilly, who worked at Glaxo for 16 years as a senior service management technical lead, claims he alerted both his direct superiors over issues with IT systems, specifically the “instability and non-compliance of the production computer system” that supported drug manufacturing, but his concerns were ignored. Mr. Reilly alleged the problems were “being covered up and disregarded”, and that he was subject to “hostility, discrimination and retaliation” after having pointed out the issues. The Telegraph
New Jersey Offers to Probe Fraud at For-Profit Colleges If Federal Government Won’t – Reports that the U.S. Department of Education is quietly shutting down investigations into possible fraud committed by for-profit colleges caught the attention of New Jersey’s new Democratic attorney general, who offered to finish the probes himself if the agency won’t. Gurbir Grewal, confirmed in January as the state’s top law-enforcement officer, said in a May 17 letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that he’d be willing to take over investigations the agency “shuts down prematurely” and asked for access to the department’s files. The letter, a copy of which was posted online, cites recent reports that the department has “effectively killed” investigations into possible fraud at several large for-profit colleges and restricted communications about the probes between the agency’s staff and state attorneys general. Bloomberg
Drone Maker Accused of Covering Up Bomb in Bag on Flight – AeroVironment Inc. was accused of trying to conceal that employees transported a drone rigged with explosives on a commercial flight and retaliating against a manager who told the government. In April 2015, AeroVironment workers traveled to Los Angeles from Salt Lake City on a Delta Air Lines Inc. flight with at least one of them toting an explosive-laden drone in a carry-on bag, according to an April 18 complaint in California Superior Court in Los Angeles. The plaintiff, Mark Anderson, who oversaw security for the drone-maker’s top-secret government programs, learned of the incident in May 2015, according to the complaint. He alleges that after reporting it to the U.S. Department of Defense, he was reprimanded, stripped of his responsibilities and ultimately fired without severance. Bloomberg