Whistleblower Representation

On March 29, 2017, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Ron Wyden, the founding members of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus, introduced the IRS Whistleblower Improvements Act of 2017 , bipartisan legislation intended to improve communication between the IRS and whistleblowers and strengthen the protections for whistleblowers against workplace retaliation. “Whistleblowers are a crucial line of defense against waste, fraud and abuse,” said Wyden in a joint statement . “This

Being a whistleblower involves personal sacrifice and professional risk.  Many violations of the law go unreported because people who know about them are afraid of being disciplined, losing their job, being demoted, or being passed over for promotion.  Recognizing the financial, reputational and professional risks associated with whistleblowing, Congress included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (the “Dodd-Frank Act” or the “DFA”) stron

This Blog previously wrote about a case involving a whistleblower’s claim, under the “alternate remedy” provision of Section 3730(c)(5) of the False Claims Act (“FCA”), to settlement proceeds obtained in a later-filed action brought by the government even though the whistleblower had voluntarily dismissed his earlier qui tam action. Earlier this month, Judge William H. Pauley, III had the opportunity to address the issue in United States ex rel. Kolchinsky v. Moody’s Corp .

Medicare and Medicaid fraud costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year.  In 2016, the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) estimated that in fiscal year 2015, taxpayers lost almost $90 billion to improper payments from Medicare and Medicaid providers.  The GAO defines an improper payment to be any payment that should not have been made or that was made in an incorrect amount (including overpayments and underpayments) under statutory, contractual, administrative, or ot

The Department of Justice ("DOJ") recently announced that CA Technologies ("CA") has agreed to pay $45 million to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act related to a General Services Administration ("GSA") contract awarded to the company for software licenses and maintenance services. CA is an international information technology management software and services company with headquarters on Long Island, New York.  The government alleged that CA made false statements

On February 21, 2017, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment in  Bishop v. Wells Fargo & Co . and remanded the case to the Second Circuit “for further consideration in light of Universal Health Servs. v. United States ex rel. Escobar ,” in which the Court recognized the implied certification theory as “a basis for liability” in False Claims Act (“FCA”) lawsuits. In Bishop , the relators, Robert Kraus and Paul Bishop (together, the “relators”), brought a qui tam action unde

In a case of first impression for the courts within the Second Circuit, Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York answered the foregoing question: no. United States v. L-3 Commc’ns Eotech, Inc. , No. 15-cv-9262 (RJS) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 3, 2017). An Overview of the False Claims Act and the Whistleblower Reward The False Claims Act (“FCA” or the “Act”) prohibits businesses and individuals from defrauding the government by

Like their larger siblings, small businesses that do business with the government, e.g. , healthcare providers who receive reimbursement from Medicare or Medicaid, government contractors or subcontractors, and nonprofit companies that receive state or federal funding, are at risk of being the subject of a whistleblower claim. Given the risks, small businesses should have whistleblower polices in place – policies that can encourage employees to report misconduct internally and

In February, the Royal Bank of Scotland was hit with a $85 million civil penalty by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC") in connection with the bank's attempted manipulation of a benchmark tied to U.S. dollar based swap transactions over a five-year period from January 2007 through March 2012. The commodities watchdog found that RBS bid, offered and executed transactions that were pegged to the U.S. Dollar International Swaps and Derivatives Association Fix

The Anti-Retaliation Provisions of The False Claims Act: The decision to blow the whistle is not an easy one to make, especially when the person blowing the whistle does so on his/her employer. A person’s career, financial security, reputation and sometimes personal safety can be at risk. This is true whether the person worked for the company that is the subject of a potential whistleblower (or “qui tam”) action. Recognizing the risks, Congress amended the False Claims Act (

Last year, this Blog wrote a number of articles about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC” or the “Commission”) efforts to stop companies from impeding whistleblowers from reporting violations of the securities laws to the Commission. ( See here , here , and here .) It looks like 2017 is picking up where 2016 left off. Last week, the SEC announced the settlement of two enforcement actions ( here and here ) against companies that impeded protected whistleblower ac

On January 23, 2017, the SEC announced that it awarded more than $7 million to three whistleblowers who came forward with information that led to a successful SEC enforcement action.  One whistleblower provided information that the SEC considered to be the primary impetus for the start of the Commission’s investigation.  Consequently, the SEC awarded more than $4 million to that whistleblower.  The other two whistleblowers split more than $3 million for jointly providing new

Being a whistleblower is not easy. It involves personal sacrifice and professional risk. Many violations of the law go unreported, especially in the workplace, because people who know about them are afraid of being disciplined, losing their job, being demoted, or being passed over for promotion. Recognizing the financial, reputational and professional risks associated with whistleblowing, Congress included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 20

On January 6, 2017, the SEC announced that it awarded $5.5 million to a whistleblower who came forward with information that led to a successful SEC enforcement action.  The whistleblower is the 38 th relator to receive an award under the SEC whistleblower program. In total, since 2011, the SEC has paid approximately $142 million to whistleblowers who provided information resulting in the collection of monetary sanctions against violators of the securities laws. To date, th

On December 22, 2016, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (“Teva”), the world’s largest manufacturer of generic pharmaceutical products, and its wholly-owned Russian subsidiary, Teva LLC (“Teva Russia”), agreed to resolve criminal charges and to pay a criminal penalty of more than $283 million for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). The charges relate to various schemes involving the bribery of government off

Can I receive a financial award for blowing the whistle on my company? A Texas federal jury has found the entities formerly known as Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corporation ("Allied Capital") and Allied Home Mortgage Corporation ("Allied Corporation" and together with Allied Capital, "Allied") and CEO Jim Hodge liable for violating the False Claims Act ("FCA") and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 ("FIRREA") in connection with more than

On December 14, 2016, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it “obtained more than $4.7 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government” in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2016. This amount represents “the third highest annual recovery in False Claims Act history, bringing the fiscal year average to nearly $4 billion since fiscal year 2009, and the total recovery during that period to $31.3 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or “Commission”) has put a lump of coal in the Christmas stockings of two companies this week for using separation agreements that impede the ability of whistleblowers to report violations of the securities laws to the Commission. The announcements by the SEC ( here and here ) came within a day of each other and evidence a continued resolve by the Commission to crackdown on companies that use severance agreements and other types

Perpetrating a fraud on the government is a serious problem. It has economic and life threatening consequences ( e.g. , increasing costs to taxpayers, and providing defective bullet proof vests to the military). Congress and the states have passed many laws to end fraud on the government. Chief among these is the False Claims Act (“FCA”) and the state analogues. The FCA imposes liability on persons and companies who defraud the government and protects and rewards whistleblow

On December 6, 2016, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a violation of the seal provisions of the False Claims Act (“FCA”) does not mandate dismissal of a relators’ complaint. In doing so, the Court affirmed the judgment of the Fifth Circuit, which, in turn, affirmed the judgment of the district court. In State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. United States Ex Rel. Rigsby (which this Blog wrote about here and here ), whistleblowers, Cori and Kerri Rigsby, filed a qui ta