By Admin | Published January 8, 2015 | Posted in Employee Rights | Tagged Tags: employee rights, labor and employment | Leave a comment
A federal judge is allowing an ex-fraud investigator for Dow Chemical Co. to pursue a wrongful termination claim. Kimberly Wood, who had worked for 25 years at Dow before the company fired her in October, alleges that the company was engaged in significant financial misconduct, specifically major spending by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Read More
Read MoreIn what is being considered a record, landmark case, a former bank executive at Countrywide Financial (now owned by Bank of America Corporation) was awarded $57 million for exposing the presence of fraud in the company’s mortgage practices. Edward O’Donnell initially filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Countrywide, accusing the company of defrauding mortgage finance Read More
Read MoreA federal jury determined that Trinity Industries, a Texas-based guardrail manufacturer, must pay $175 million in penalties after a whistleblower alerted authorities to False Claims Act violations by the company. Trinity manufactures many of the guardrails that you see as you drive on highways and roads across the nation. Josh Harman, the whistleblower in the Read More
Read MoreJavier Soto was at one point a Ratings Benefits Services Representative for the St. Petersburg region office of the Department of Veterans Affairs. However, after he released a report that spoke to the “poor, inept and inaccurate” process of quality control for benefits claims at the VA, he was released from his duties. Now, Read More
Read MoreA recently published study indicates that companies face much larger monetary penalties whenever a whistleblower is involved in enforcement actions against the company. In an average case, those companies paid penalties that were 63 percent higher with whistleblowers than in cases where there was no whistleblower. Data for the study came from information from the Read More
Read MoreSen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla) recently presented a new piece of legislation that will protect the rights of whistleblowers within the auto industry, and offer them the potential to be paid millions of dollars in rewards for particular types of cases. The new bill would give the secretary of transportation the Read More
Read MoreFour years ago, Francis X. Dougherty was fired after revealing the existence of a $7.5 million no-bid security camera contract within the Philadelphia School District. Now, he has won a major victory in his whistleblower lawsuit against the district, with the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that he was exercising his first amendment Read More
Read MoreThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released its annual report on its new whistleblower program, and according to that report, whistleblower tips and awards through the agency are on the rise. This year saw more than 3,500 tips from whistleblowers, the largest number the agency has received since beginning its whistleblower program three Read More
Read MoreAccording to a memo recently sent out to all UPS employees, as of January 1, 2015 the company will offer its temporary light duty positions to pregnant workers as well as workers that have suffered injuries on the job. This comes as UPS gets ready to engage in a high-profile Supreme Court case, Young v. Read More
Read MoreAccording to the ruling of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a former health care executive that exposed a kickback and illegal referral scheme by his employer will be allowed to proceed with certain allegations listed in his False Claims Act lawsuit against his ex-employer. J. Michael Mastej, the whistleblower in this case, Read More
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