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International Whistleblower Rewards See Boost

We are seeing more movement on the payment of whistleblower rewards internationally. Nigeria and Korea have been paying rewards recently and Australia continues to consider stronger retaliation protections and monetary incentives. This is in addition to the Ontario Securities Commission’s implementation of a program to reward tips about securities fraud last year. Here is a...

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DOE Delays Whistleblower Protection Rule

The Department of Energy recently announced in the Federal Register a 60 day stay of its new regulation permitting civil penalties against contractors and subcontractors that retaliate against an employee reporting fraud, waste or abuse. The DOE cited the Chief of Staff’s January 20, 2017 memorandum, which calls for a 60 day delay in the...

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IRS Dirty Dozen Tax Scams for 2017

The Internal Revenue Service is just over halfway done releasing its list of tax scams for 2017. The Dirty Dozen list has been an annual feature of the IRS website and garners a significant amount of media attention warning taxpayers to avoid the tax evasion techniques and fraudulent schemes listed. In recent years, the IRS...

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Rising Costs of Retaliation Against Whistleblowers

Firing whistleblowers for informing the government about corporate activities has been standard practice at many businesses for a long time. That practice may be changing quickly if the government continues to pursue enforcement actions against companies engaged in retaliation and juries continue to provide multi-million dollar verdicts to whistleblowers. This week, the media reported an...

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FCPA Enforcement in 2017

The end of the Obama Administration was one of the busiest in the resolution of government investigations ever. The SEC and DOJ wrapped up nine Foreign Corrupt Practice Act investigations in the course of two months. The enforcement actions involved: Odebrecht and Braskem: $3.5 billion (US, Brazil and Switzerland) Rolls Royce: $800 million (US, UK...

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IRS Whistleblower Awards Up Big in FY 2016

In the 10th year since the creation of Internal Revenue Code section 7623(b), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Whistleblower Program issued 418 awards totaling more than $61 million (before sequestration), according to the annual report issued by the program’s Whistleblower Office to Congress. The total number of awards represented a 322 percent increase over fiscal year...

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Deeper Insights into Government Enforcement Under Trump Administration

It was an interesting week on government enforcement as the Obama Administration is closing out its term with fines against auto industry manufacturers VW ($4.3 billion) and Takata (expected to be up to $1 billion). After the inauguration, these enforcement decisions will be in the hands of the Trump Administration. President-elect Trump has promised change...

Study: Whistleblowers Deter Wrongdoing

A study of whistleblower retaliation cases at 317 public companies in the United States out of the University of Iowa has concluded that businesses that have had a whistleblower are less likely to have accounting irregularities or tax aggressiveness. The research done by Jarone H. Wilde, an assistant professor of accounting at Iowa, focused on the two years...

OSHA Guidelines: Protecting Whistleblowers from Retaliation

Last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration offered a set of recommendations for employers to create retaliation-free workplaces. The guidance is directed at employers with employees covered by the 22 whistleblower protection statutes enforced by OSHA. The publication reinforces the broad scope of 22 federal statutes offering anti-retaliation protections concerning hazards or violations of...

Beige Volkswagen Beetle, representing the $4 Billion Fine for Volkswagen and NHTSA Whistleblower Rules

A $4 Billion Fine for Volkswagen

A $4 Billion Fine for Volkswagen Reuters is reporting that Volkswagen AG and the Justice Department are near an agreement to resolve criminal and civil liability for the German automaker’s diesel emissions cheating scandal. If the reported $3 billion figure is finalized, it will be the largest fine ever paid by an automaker to the...

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