Becoming a whistle-blower is now a financially sound career move, thanks to the UK’s Office of Fair Trade (OFT). The British watch dog announced last Friday that it will offer as much as £100,000 for information leading to the discovery and dismantling of illegal corporate cartels. The OFT will offer the rewards for […]
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The large percentage of Germans that regularly avoid taxes isn’t terribly surprising, considering the nation’s top income tax rate is 45 percent and the tax laws are notoriously confusing, according to Bloomberg. Nevertheless, the problem is huge for the country and getting worse. The issue is making a lot of headlines right now, […]
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Seven years ago H. Dean Steinke, a rising employee and former district sales manager for Merck, put his career on hold by blowing the whistle on his former employee’s unethical marketing practices. Today, his conscience finally paid off when Merck agreed to pay $671 million to settle accusations of overcharging government programs such as […]
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Stolt-Nielsen’s amnesty has been reinstated and the company’s Chief Executive, Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen, is “pleased” that he doesn’t have to go to jail - a fate suffered by three top brass of the company’s co-conspirators in a 2002 antitrust case. This is the latest (and final?) development in an ongoing case of “he said, […]
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The major finance and business media missed this, but it’s big all the same. Ethisphere has learned that several days ago a former financial staff member of the Chinese company, LDK Solar Co. Ltd, has sent letters to company management alleging that he was terminated last month as financial controller because […]
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After investigating a former Enron employee’s high profile whistle-blower story, USA Today discovered she’s not everything she claims to be.
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Zhang Zhijian, a Chinese citizen imprisoned for posting an online story about government corruption, was released and compensated 24,000 yuan after serving ten months in jail. Zhang, who accused former drug safety commissioner Zheng Xiaoyu of being corrupt in his position, was sentenced to six years in prison for defaming the government.
The posting […]
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The Crane Company, a manufacturer of products, such as valves and marine components, has agreed to pay the United States $7.5 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations, the Justice Department announced today. The government alleges the company did not comply with Defense Department Qualified Products List (QPL) regulations, which require that product suppliers […]
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The Communist Party Disciplinary Committee of the Haishu district in Ningbo has underwritten the creation of an online multi-player computer game called “The Incorruptible Warrior.”
The game went live last week on July 25th and it has already been downloaded over 100,000 times, with hundreds of players engaging online simultaneously.
Why so popular? Because the […]
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The U.S. Department of Justice has joined a whistleblower lawsuit against Fresenius Medical Care AG, the world’s largest dialysis care company, which accuses the company of defrauding Medicare between 1999 and 2005 by filing false claims.
Two former employees filed suit against the company, contending that the fraud was an attempt to skirt Medicare’s […]
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TRACE International, a non-profit membership association (and important partner of the Ethisphere Council) that helps companies combat bribery, announced the creation of a new database that can help businesses track the prevalence of bribery attempts and requests.
This new online tool, called BRIBEline, is backed by many leading organizations and companies such as Wal-Mart, International Paper, […]
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A lawsuit against Fidelity Investments accuses the mutual fund giant of deliberately avoiding and violating portions of the U.S. Patriot Act. The whistle was blown on the company by, of all people, one of its former compliance officers. What has resulted is a mess of finger-pointing, additional lawsuits, and rush to put a seal on […]
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Last week, Ernst & Young released an interested survey on whistleblowing, corporate culture and the fear of reprisal across the European Union.
The survey, Fraud Risk Mitigation in Europe, interviewed 1300 employees of multinational companies in eight Western European and five Central and Eastern European countries (100 respondents in each country), and invited […]
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As today’s Baltimore Sun reports, the former General Counsel of Fieldstone Mortgage has filed a whistleblower complaint against the company from which she was fired in January. According to reports, Cynthia L. Harkness, alleges that she was filed in retaliation for accusing senior management of illegal activity.
Harkness had been with the company […]
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In an update to a case we have covered previously on Ethisphere, a district court judge in India has sentenced an Indian Oil Corporation executive to death for the slaying of a whistleblower who had exposed a fuel scam.
Judge S. M. A. Abidi sentenced seven co-conspirators to life in prison and suspended the death sentence […]
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The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision that went against the Bush administration’s recommendation, and had whistle-blower advocates up in arms. The Supreme Court ended an 18-year legal battle by ruling that James Stone, an 83-year-old retired engineer and one-time Rockwell International employee, may not collect any money for his part in uncovering fraud […]
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In a “I broke up with you”… “No, you didn’t. You only broke up with me because I was going to break up with you” spat, Kodak and the Better Business Bureau have parted ways. While it is not uncommon for companies to join or quit the BBB over the years, what makes […]
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The BBC just aired a lengthy news story from a reporter that went undercover and worked at the bank for nearly six months. The reporter, Amanda Egbujo, goes into great length about the unethical culture and business practices of the bank, including:
the bank’s failure to conduct any significant reference or background checking […]
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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that information obtained from the government through public means may form the basis of a False Claims Act complaint. The decision widens the definition of a whistleblower, or relator, and makes it easier for non-governmental employees to sue government contractors for fraud. Patricia Haight, an animal activist […]
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For the first time, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act orders a bank to reinstate Finance Chief Powers to a former chief financial officer/whistleblower of a small Virginia bank who was ordered back to work. The bank was ordered by the U.S. Department of Labor to reinstate Welch to his job on an interim basis or offer him […]
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The federal government settled charges with Honeywell that it failed to properly test packaging for sensitive parts used by the Defense Department and NASA. Honeywell was accused of violating the False Claims Act in testing of electrostatic protective metallic sheets that were to package more than 186,000 sensitive parts. Honeywell paid nearly 15 percent of […]
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For the first time ever, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act orders bank to reinstate Finance Chief Powers brought in under Sarbanes-Oxley to protect whistleblowers have seen a former chief financial officer of a small Virginia bank ordered back to work. The bank was ordered to reinstate Welch to his job on an interim basis or offer him […]
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A New Jersey hospital chain will pay $265 million to settle a pair of whistleblower lawsuits that claimed it had systematically inflated charges to Medicare patients in order to obtain enhanced reimbursements. The settlement by Saint Barnabas Corp., the largest health care system in New Jersey, is likely the first in a series of similar […]
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Del Monte Fresh Foods has reached a $400,000 settlement with eight former employees who claimed they were fired for complaining about safety problems. The case originated from a dispute over a shift that was scheduled to start at midnight on New Year’s Day 2005. As the holiday drew near, some workers at Del Monte’s food […]
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The federal government settled charges with Honeywell that it failed to properly test packaging for sensitive parts used by the Defense Department and NASA. Honeywell was accused of violating the False Claims Act in testing of electrostatic protective metallic sheets that were to package more than 186,000 sensitive parts. According to protected court documents, Honeywell […]
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