The New Yorker declares it the year of the whistleblower, and we offer some of our popular posts of 2019.
From The New Yorker:
This year, as one scandal after another played out in the news, it was easy to become overwhelmed. Amid all the noise, there’s been a common theme in many of the reports—the increased profile and significance of whistle-blowers. It’s hard to think of another recent period when the act of whistle-blowing has had such a consequential impact on our politics and culture.
From the Whistleblower Protection Blog:
Ukraine whistleblower
- Can the Ukraine call whistleblower remain anonymous? And, who is obligated to protect his or her anonymity?
- The journalist and the whistleblower. Every journalist who has ever worked with a whistleblower knows these are fraught relationships.
- Remember when the whistleblower complaint was seen as “hearsay”? Turns out secondhand whistleblower “reports are 47.7% more likely than firsthand reports to be substantiated by management, which suggests that management views many secondhand reports as credible.“
Climate Corruption Campaign
- NWC announces new program; Only company insiders would know of climate change-related risks concealed from shareholders, the IRS and the public. The campaign will help these insiders secure confidential whistleblower status.
- More here. Can whistleblowers save the Amazon rainforest?
Government Contracting
- Ernie Fitzgerald, a man once called “America’s most famous whistleblower” died in February at the age of 92.He exposed $600 toilets.
- Bunny Greenhouse was profiled on CBS for her work exposing a no-bid government contract for the vice-president’s former employer, Halliburton.
Money laundering
- Danske Bank whistleblower Howard Wilkinson appeared on the news program 60 Minutes. He exposed a $230 billion Russian money laundering scheme at the bank’s Estonia branch.
- Bradley Birkenfeld, the Swiss bank whistleblower who outed Americans’ secret USB bank accounts, appeared at an offshore fraud and financial services conference in Miami in April.
More environmental whistleblowers
- of pain clinics that abruptly shut down last summer faces five whistleblower lawsuits accusing it of defrauding Medicare by billing for hundreds of unnecessary urine drug tests.
- Duke University pays $112 million fine in faulty research case.
EU
- In April, the European Union approved whistleblower protection rule.