Qui tam whistleblower lawsuits are on the rise, and for good reason.  Although the basis for qui tam lawsuits, the U.S. False Claims Act, has been around for roughly 150 years, amendments were made to the bill in 2009 and 2010 that significantly strengthened it.  The False Claims Act allows a person who is not [...]

United States District Court Judge Lucy Koh denied in part a motion to dismiss filed by Pfizer in a whistleblower suit brought by a former company executive.  Delina Ferretti, a former oncology director for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, filed a lawsuit in September 2011 alleging that she had been terminated in violation of various state [...]

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) of the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced on March 1st that the agency’s whistleblower program will now report directly to the Office of the Assistant Secretary instead of to its Directorate of Enforcement Programs.  OSHA noted in a press release that the move represented a significantly elevated priority [...]

Although the whistleblower “bounty” programs created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act have gotten a good deal of attention from in the media, Dodd-Frank also created a very important set of whistleblower protections for employees of a wide range of businesses who oppose or report  violations of a number of federal [...]