The Chamber of Commerce has commenced a well-financed and aggressive lobbying campaign to undermine America’s most effective whistleblower law, the False Claims Act. To justify its anti-whistleblower campaign the Chamber published a report entitled, “Fixing the False Claims Act: the Case For Compliance-Focused Reforms.” The purpose of this blog series is to combat the Chamber’s misinformation, and explain why the False Claims Act must be protected.

Whistleblowers and their supporters are strongly urged to read this blog series and share it with friends. In addition, an Action Alert has been issued by the National Whistleblower Center so members of the public inform their representatives that the False Claims Act should not be “reformed” as proposed by the Chamber.

Fact Number 4:

Below are the actual reporting characteristics of all employees’ reporting behavior in the U.S.

Initial Behavior of Employees Who Report Fraud

* Based on the statistics reported in “Inside the Mind of a Whistleblower” Report by the Ethics Resource Center (2012). 
Continue Reading Employees Are Very Reluctant to Report Fraud to Federal Law Enforcement

The Chamber of Commerce has commenced a well-financed and aggressive lobbying campaign to undermine America’s most effective whistleblower law, the False Claims Act. To justify its anti-whistleblower campaign the Chamber published a report entitled, “Fixing the False Claims Act: the Case For Compliance-Focused Reforms.” The purpose of this blog series is to combat the Chamber’s misinformation, and explain why the False Claims Act must be protected.

Whistleblowers and their supporters are strongly urged to read this blog series and share it with friends. In addition, an Action Alert has been issued by the National Whistleblower Center so members of the public inform their representatives that the False Claims Act should not be “reformed” as proposed by the Chamber.

Fact Number 3:

The need to protect the False Claims Act from hostile “reforms” was best stated in a bipartisan report issued on September 25, 2008, by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.  After studying the FCA, the Judiciary Committee endorsed none of the “reforms” urged by the Chamber of Commerce.  Instead, the Committee recommended expanding its scope. 
Continue Reading Whistleblowers Are Key to the DOJ’s Ability to Protect the Taxpayers from Fraud

The Chamber of Commerce has commenced a well-financed and aggressive lobbying campaign to undermine America’s most effective whistleblower law, the False Claims Act. To justify its anti-whistleblower campaign the Chamber published a report entitled, “Fixing the False Claims Act: the Case For Compliance-Focused Reforms.” The purpose of this blog series is to combat the Chamber’s misinformation, and explain why the False Claims Act must be protected.

Whistleblowers and their supporters are strongly urged to read this blog series and share it with friends. In addition, an Action Alert has been issued by the National Whistleblower Center so members of the public inform their representatives that the False Claims Act should not be “reformed” as proposed by the Chamber.

Fact Number 2:

The University of Chicago Booth School of Economics conducted the most comprehensive and objective study of whether the False Claims Act works.  Their study was designed to “identify the most effective mechanisms for detecting corporate fraud” and was based on an “in- depth” study of “all reported fraud cases in large U.S. companies between 1996 and 2004.” 
Continue Reading “Monetary Incentives Work” without “Negative Side Effects”

The Chamber of Commerce has commenced a well-financed and aggressive lobbying campaign to undermine America’s most effective whistleblower law, the False Claims Act. To justify its anti-whistleblower campaign the Chamber published a report entitled, “Fixing the False Claims Act: the Case For Compliance-Focused Reforms.” This is the first posts in a series the purpose of which is to combat the Chamber’s misinformation, and explain why the False Claims Act must be protected.

Whistleblowers and their supporters are strongly urged to read this blog series and share it with friends. In addition, an Action Alert has been issued by the National Whistleblower Center so members of the public inform their representatives that the False Claims Act should not be “reformed” as proposed by the Chamber.

Fact Number 1:

As demonstrated in the graph below, the FCA’s reward provisions have worked, causing even the Chamber of Commerce to concede that the FCA is the “most important tool to uncover and punish fraud against the United States.” In the graph (source), the qui tam recoveries (represented in orange) are those exclusively derived from whistleblower FCA disclosures.  The recoveries obtained by the government that are not directly and explicitly tied to whistleblowers are represented in blue, (i.e. the “Non-Qui Tam” recoveries).  As can be seen, the amount of actual recoveries obtained on behalf of the taxpayers from dishonest government contractors has grown significantly over the years, as employees have become aware of the FCA and utilized its qui tam procedures. 
Continue Reading The False Claims Act Works

Washington, D.C. October 22, 2014. Yesterday, the National Whistleblower Center filed a “friend of court” brief in Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Carter before the U.S. Supreme Court.  The extensive brief delivers a full rebuttal of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) and Kellogg Brown & Root’s (KBR) attack on the integrity of whistleblowers.

The Chamber and its corporate allies (in this case KBR) are attempting convince the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of whistleblowers eligible to file cases under the False Claims Act. Their position would block whistleblowers with key original information on government fraud from filing their cases by a hyper technical technicality.
Continue Reading NWC Fights Back Chamber of Commerce/KBR Attack on Whistleblowers at Supreme Court

Senator Grassley
Senator Grassley

On July 30, 2014, the House Judiciary Committee Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee held a hearing on proposals by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to substantially weaken the False Claims Act (FCA). The FCA is the most effective whistleblower law and allows those with evidence of fraud against federal programs or contracts to sue the wrongdoer on behalf of the United States Government. Employees are in the best position to witness fraud and report it to the government.

The Chamber has launched an attack to weaken the FCA because the FCA is effective at combat corporate wrongdoing, and whistleblower claims under the FCA help the U.S. Government recover about $4 billion a year from U.S. government contractors who cheat the taxpayers by double billing the government or committing other frauds.

Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center, submitted written testimony countering the validity of the Chamber’s so-called “reforms” to the FCA. The Chamber’s proposals would force whistleblowers to report internally before they can bring a claim under the FCA and reduce penalties for corporate wrongdoing under the. Kohn noted that the Chamber’s proposals, as outlined in the National Whistleblowers Center’s report, “Saving America’s ‘Most Important Tool to Uncover and Punish Fraud,’” taken together, would cripple a key “tool” for uncovering and punishing fraud against the taxpayers.

Kohn’s written testimony warned that the Chamber’s bid to create incentives for companies to enhance corporate internal compliance programs and its vision of how these programs work is “highly misleading”.  
Continue Reading Senator Grassley Steps Forward Once Again to Defend Whistleblowers

ReportCover

On July 25, 2014, the National Whistleblower Center issued the following Action Alert:

Demand that the House Judiciary Committee cancel the hearing on False Claims Act “reform” scheduled for July 30, 2014. If the Committee is determined to hold the hearing, then a member of the National Whistleblower Center should be invited to testify as a witness.

Urgent Action Needed!!

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (“Chamber”) has declared a war against whistleblowers!  It has released a report, “Fixing the False Claims Act: the Case For Compliance-Focused Reforms,” setting forth proposals to strip millions of Americans from coverage under the Act, limit damages, increase the burden of proof on demonstrating fraud and establishing barriers to block employees from contacting the Justice Department.  Taken together, the Chamber’s “reforms” would completely undermine the False Claims Act.
Continue Reading NWC Issues Action Alert to Save America’s Most Important Whistleblower Law

"Whistle-blower legislation brings in a lot of money," proclaims the headline in Business Hungary magazine. The article in November’s issue reports on a trip to Hungary by Stephen M. Kohn, President of the National Whistlelbower Center. 

Stephen M. Kohn speaks to the American Chamber of Commerce in Hungary, October 2008Stephen Kohn traveled to Hungary last Fall to urge Hungarian officials to adopt a whistleblower law similar to America’s