Category: News

Happy Birthday, False Claims Act The False Claims Act, also known as Lincoln’s Law, was passed by Congress on March 2, 1863, making the law a ripe old 147 (although it doesn’t hold a candle to the giant tortoise, which can reportedly live 255 years).  The law’s origins as a measure designed to combat fraud stemming from...

Amendments to the False Claims Act The False Claims Act, also known as Lincoln’s Law, has undergone some major amendments over the years. This is an important time for the act, considering that some of the most significant amendments in decades were just passed a few months ago. As we blogged previously, the False Claims...

The River Styx Co-Pay In Greek mythology, the River Styx served as the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. In order to cross the river, a dead person had to pay the ferryman, Charon, a fee. The ancients would place a coin in the mouth of the deceased in order to pay this fee, as it was...

Sold Out by USDA? Hopefully you’re not about to tuck into a plate of veal cutlet or sausage right now.  The latest whistleblower to be undermined by the very agency he worked for–the USDA–is veterinarian Dr. Dean Wyatt. For the past 18 years, Dr. Wyatt has had the enviable position of monitoring slaughtering operations for the...

Ernst and Young Under the Gun In the game of “Life,” (the Milton Bradley version, mind you) each piece of paper money bears the image of a fanciful character. One of the most memorable is that of “G.I. Luvmoney” (Art Linkletter). It seems that the spirit of old G.I. Luvmoney may have been hovering over...

YLG Beefs Up Its Wage and Hour Practice With the down turn in the economy over the last several years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of employers who are violating federal and state overtime and other wage protections. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that due to the...

Health Care Bill Passed; Whistleblowers Needed! Now that Congress has finally passed the health care bill, there will be an even greater need for whistleblowers to identify  fraud in the health care industry, particularly in relation to Medicare and Medicaid. The health care bill gives little “gifts” to insurance companies and hospitals, including insurance giant Kaiser Permanante and...

Study Finds Whistleblowers are the Fraud-Finding Pros Back in the fear-infused days of fall 2001, when it seemed that a plane full of terrorists and Anthrax-wielding snipers was lurking around every corner, a whistleblower was helping to uncover the Enron scandal–just before the company imploded. Sherron Watkins was Vice President of Corporate Development at Enron, and she...

New Restrictions on Whistleblower Suits a la the Supreme Court If you’re thinking about blowing the whistle on your corrupt little local government after you heard about their having misspent funds from a state audit, think again. The Supreme Court has just handed down a decision which holds that the provision of the False Claims...

Academia’s Whistleblower Obsession Whistleblowers are getting a lot of attention from academics these days. Just last week, in fact, we wrote about a study conducted by a group of finance professors which found that whistleblowers–employees in particular–are the most effective at finding corporate fraud. Now, another study has come out, this one with much more...