When an employee in Wisconsin, or anywhere in the country, has knowledge that his or her employer is engaging in illegal activities, the employee has the right to become a whistle-blower by alerting the authorities. In many cases, whistle-blowers are then entitled to a portion of any resulting financial settlement. However, it is risky to become a whistle-blower, because the employer might choose to illegally retaliate by terminating the person from the company. This is why it is important to seek legal counsel when filing a whistle-blower claim.
A whistle-blower lawsuit that was filed against three companies involved with the CIA came to a close last week. In that case, a whistle-blower accused the companies of bribing CIA employees with gifts in order to earn contracts.
The three companies involved in this lawsuit all wanted to do cable and wiring work with certain CIA facilities. In order to obtain contracts for the work, the companies each reportedly gave expensive gifts to CIA workers involved with the projects. The gifts included vacations, sports tickets, dinners, golf excursions and more.
An employee at one of the companies filed the whistle-blower lawsuit, exposing the fraud. Under federal law, it is generally not legal to provide government entities with gifts and gratuities. This is because this can lead to corruption.
Nine CIA employees reportedly accepted the illegal gifts.
The three companies agreed last week to pay $3 million to settle the lawsuit. About $585,000 of that will be paid to the whistle-blower who brought the fraud to light. It is currently unclear whether the CIA employees will be disciplined.
Source: Washington.CBS.Local.com, “$3M Whistleblower Settlement in CIA Kickback case,” March 7, 2013
