Whistleblower News From the Inside -- September 30, 2016
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
Casino-gaming company IGT to pay fine for retaliating against whistleblower — International Game Technology has agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty for firing an employee for telling the SEC that the casino-gaming company’s financial statements might be distorted. The SEC said the employee was removed from significant work assignments within weeks of raising concerns about the company’s cost accounting model. Reuters
Three senators ask SEC to investigate Wells Fargo — Sens. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) wrote a letter to SEC Chairman Mary Jo White urging the regulator to probe further into whether Wells Fargo and its senior officials “violated laws by misleading investors and firing whistleblowers while the bank oversaw the creation of millions of unauthorized, fraudulent accounts.” WSJ
Swiss financier gets 5-1/2 years in jail for fraud — A former Swiss fund manager accused of cheating 2,000 investors out of around 800 million Swiss francs ($826 million) was sentenced to 5-1/2 years in jail on Friday, more than a decade after his investment empire collapsed. Authorities said Dieter Behring several partners ran a trading system from Basel, Switzerland, that falsely promised “above-average results” for investors before it collapsed in 2004. Reuters
Ex-A.I.G. Chief Parries Inquiries on Offshore Reinsurer in Fraud Trial — Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of American International Group, told the judge presiding over his civil accounting fraud trial on Thursday that the motive for one key transaction was to help certain A.I.G. employees get continuing losses “off their back” in a competitive corporate culture. Deal Book
2 get prison for $18M theft, West Texas credit union failure — Prosecutors say two ex-workers at El Paso Federal Credit Union have been sentenced to prison for stealing more than $18 million and causing the institution to fail. Former assistant manager Hilda Simental Mendoza was sentenced to 10 years in prison and former manager Maria Guadalupe Hernandez to nearly 16 years. Washington Times