The Department of Veterans Affairs has $66.9 billion in committed contracts — the most procurement dollars of all the U.S. government’s civilian agencies (i.e. not the Department of Defense). Unfortunately, the VA also appears to rank high in fraud. The VA’s Office of Inspector General recently audited just 20 VA contracts for compliance; it found overcharging in 11 of them. At least two cases involved fraud against the government — False Claims Act violations that the government pursued … [Read more...]
Chickens to seatbelts: The scope of the DOJ’s new whistleblower program
It can happen with something as ubiquitous and unassuming as poultry. A five-year price-fixing scheme inflated the price Americans paid for chicken. Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. pleaded guilty in 2021 to a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products — with a sentence that included about $107.9 million in criminal fines. The federal government hopes it can unearth a lot more of these schemes — which are notoriously difficult to detect and investigate (LINK TO PRIOR BLOG) — … [Read more...]
Employee Misclassification: What Workers Should Know About This Costly Technicality
We’ve seen this happen before, and workers need to know about it so they can protect their rights, incomes and livelihoods — especially when they may need a worker misclassification attorney to step in. This time, it was a nationwide janitorial and commercial cleaning company that operates under the CleanNet brand, along with its four California area operators, who allegedly misclassified employees as independent contractors. The company, which denied the allegations, recently agreed to a … [Read more...]
Why the DOJ’s New Whistleblower Program is Such a Big Deal
Imagine you’re in a corporate meeting about the year’s preliminary financial results. They’re good. Really good. And someone at the table says, wink, “Don’t forget to thank (our biggest competitor).” In this scenario, covert talks with a rival yielded a price-fixing scheme that is padding the bottom lines for both companies. It may not feel quite right, but you’re afraid of getting into legal trouble and of retaliation from your peers if you object. Plus, the pay bonuses make a good … [Read more...]
$1.9M Whistleblower Award Reflects Federal Focus on Cyber Fraud
A cyber fraud whistleblower is set to receive a $1.9 million award after alleging that a California biotech company, Illumina, knowingly sold multiple government agencies vulnerable software. The company, which has headquarters in San Diego but was sued in Rhode Island, sold genomic sequencing systems to the agencies. The government alleged — with the help of the whistleblower, a former Illumina employee — that Illumina knowingly sold software with cybersecurity vulnerabilities while … [Read more...]
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