KBR’s Permanent Rain Cloud Military contractor KBR, Inc., seems to have one of those personal permanent rain clouds hovering over its head that follows it everywhere. You almost can’t help feeling sorry for the forlorn little former subsidiary of Haliburton…or not. So far, KBR has been sued for (not an exhaustive list): Exposing troops to...
Qui Tam in the Mines As far as we know, they aren’t sending kids into the mines like they used to do in the heady days of 1908, when you had to start working basically as soon as you could walk. That doesn’t mean that mining is any less dangerous today, however. Every year, there seems to...
A Curious Company Called Agility Agility is one of those companies whose name gives you no clue as to what it actually does. It could be physical therapy or investments, but what Agility, which is actually a Kuwaiti logistics firm, seems to do very adeptly these days is getting itself in trouble with the U.S....
Aetna Told to Go Sit in the Corner for Medicare Compliance Violations Aetna appears to have gotten itself in some pretty big trouble. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), effectively Aetna’s authority figure, has punished the insurer for violations related to Aetna’s administration of the Medicare Advantage plan. The violations stem from Aetna’s move...
The Neverending Bradley Birkenfeld / UBS Saga If you’re interested in whistleblowers, you probably know about the saga of Bradley Birkenfeld. Birkenfeld turned over information to the IRS that led to a deal between UBS and AG Eric Holder to relinquish the names of 4,500 potential tax cheats. UBS also paid a $780 million fine. For his...
Goldman Sachs: What’s in a Name? It appears that Goldman Sachs is aptly named. Goldman has already been busted by the SEC for its role in an allegedly fraudulent scheme, which involved betting that mortgages would fail. Now, according to a former Goldman trader, big banks involved in precious metals trading have been keeping gold...
False Marking Suit Against Solo Cup Lid Maker is a Bust The patent attorney who brought a qui tam suit against the maker of Solo cup lids has failed in his quest to collect trillions of dollars in fines. We blogged previously about patent lawyer Matthew Pequignot’s suit against Solo based on the qui tam provision of the patent law which...
Tax Fraud Whistleblowers Wanted Every citizen has the chance to be the next super-star IRS whistleblower (without the unfortunate jail sentence, like UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld). If you have specific, credible information about someone who is cheating on their taxes, there may be a significant amount of reward money for you–up to 30% of the...
It Is About Time! For years, powerful lobbyist for corporate America have successfully impeded government intervention with regard to wide-spread violations of state and federal wage protection laws. Well, times have changed. Yesterday, Senator Sherrod Brown and Representative Lynn Woolsey introduced the Employee Misclassification Protection Act which is aimed at helping millions of workers who...
Putting the “i” in IRS Every citizen has the chance to be the next super-star IRS whistleblower (without the unfortunate jail sentence, like UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld). If you have specific, credible information about someone who is cheating on their taxes, there may be a significant amount of reward money for you–up to 30% of the tax, penalties,...