Whistle blowing laws for employee theft
Under United States law, whistleblowers – those who report employee fraud or theft – may be entitled to receive up to 30 percent of the funds collected by the government or corporation that is being defrauded.
Examples of employee theft that may be worthy of whistleblowing include exaggerating time sheets, “skimming off” of assets, or falsifying invoices. These actions often go unreported for fear of the whistleblower being fired and perhaps even ostracized by others in his industry. But the whistleblower may have rights. Under the False Claims Act, a whistleblower may be protected from being fired in retaliation for reporting fraud. The Act not only protects whistleblowers, it rewards them in some cases (such as when a person is reported for stealing from the state government). The act is applicable to any entity that conducts business with the federal government, including hospitals and contractors who work on highways.</p> <p>Under the statute, it is the whistleblower that brings the lawsuit against the other person; this type of suit is referred to as a qui tam suit. Once the case is filed, the government is allotted an amount of time to decide whether it wants to pursue the matter further. If, at the end of the investigation, the employee is found to be liable, he is subject to a fine and will be required to pay an amount equal to three times the amount lost by the government.</p> <p>If the government does pursue the case, the whistleblower may be entitled to receive between fifteen and twenty-five percent of whatever the government collects. That recovery, however, is limited to ten percent if the whistleblowing is based on disclosure relating to court hearings, government reports or hearings, or as a result of something reported in the media. The only exception to this is if the whistleblower is the Attorney General, or if the whistleblower is the original source of the information on which the suit is based.</p> <p>If a person is fired, demoted, or otherwise discriminated against as a result of the case, that person is entitled to be reinstated to his position and to receive double the amount of back pay owing, with interest, plus any special damages that may be applicable.</p> <p>Federal law also protects employees who serve as whistleblowers on publicly traded companies who defraud their shareholders or who violate the rules of the SEC. Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, an employee may not be “discharged, demoted, suspended, threatened, harassed, or in any other manner discriminated against” as a result of his reporting corporate theft.</p> <p>However, this protection only applies when information is provided about “conduct which the employee reasonably believes constitutes a violation,” either of federal statues or the SEC regulations that govern publicly traded corporations.</p> <p><!– [HttpException]: The file –>
