Posts Tagged ‘whistleblowers’
What Drives ‘Open Secrets’
So there I was this week, attending the annual conference of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in Texas. ACFE had asked me to moderate a keynote interview with Tyler Shultz, the immensely brave employee who endured personal and professional pressure to blow the whistle on Theranos. You might already know the tale. Shultz, 28,…
Read MoreLessons in Whistleblower Protection
One last dispatch from the HCCA conference this week: I dropped into a discussion led by a whistleblower, who discovered a $2 million embezzlement fraud while working as a university professor. Her story was gripping and vivid — and raised several powerful points about how people, compliance functions, and large enterprises should all work together.…
Read MorePodcast: CCOs Facing Retaliation
Today we return to a subject of high importance to compliance officers: how to handle retaliation against yourselves — which, for better or worse, is a reality in this line of work. Several weeks ago I wrote a post recounting the tales of the compliance professionals now suing their former employers, alleging retaliation after those…
Read MoreRetaliation Against CCOs: Three Tales
Compliance officers deal with claims of whistleblower retaliation all the time. Today we’re going to recap three examples much closer to home — compliance officers pressing claims of retaliation themselves. We hear those stories from time to time: a compliance officer reports some concern to management (otherwise known as doing your job), and management responds…
Read MoreBlackRock Pushes Culture, Policy Questions
Annual meeting season gets underway soon, and that means boards of directors meeting with powerful shareholder groups. This year’s season promises to be a bit different, as those investor groups ask pointed questions to boards about corporate culture and whistleblower retaliation. Ethics and compliance officers might want to consider the role they can play here.…
Read MoreSupreme Court Whistleblower Ruling, Already in Play
Well, we have our first instance of a company citing last month’s Supreme Court ruling against Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections to argue against a whistleblower retaliation award. Bio-Rad Laboratories, ordered last year to pay $11 million in a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit, was back in court earlier this week arguing that its damages should be cut by…
Read More16 Tweets About One Whistleblower Ruling
As most compliance officers know by now, this week the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that narrowed the scope of whistleblower protections allowed under the Dodd-Frank Act. Yesterday I broke usual form and talked about the ruling, Digital Realty Trust v. Somers, via “tweetstorm.” Without further delay, here are the tweets again for anyone…
Read MoreA Word From SEC on Accountability
This week the AICPA is holding its annual conference on Current SEC and PCAOB developments. This is the big industry event for financial reporting and compliance professionals. And, thankfully, we also have a great speech from one SEC official on the importance of ethics and accountability. The official in question is Ryan Wolfe, senior associate chief…
Read MoreItaly Enacts Whistleblower Protection Law
This just in from the Rome bureau: Italy has passed a whistleblower protection law, bringing the country one step closer to modern anti-corruption standards taking root across Europe. We don’t have all the details yet because, alas, I don’t speak Italian. But a trusted compliance source in Rome alerted me to this article in the…
Read MoreMore Compliance Lessons From HHS Dept.
Rarely do we need a follow-up post about scandal in the government world, with even more lessons for compliance officers—but hats off to the Department of Health and Human Services, which nailed it with a recent, ill-advised foray into compliance training. Just last week we had our first post, about the misconduct of now-former HHS…
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