News Clips & Coverage

District Attorney John Chisholm’s effort to silence his staff “appears to violate the Constitution,” says a nationally renowned expert on whistle-blower law.
Brian Mahany, a Milwaukee-based fraud recovery and whistle-blower claims lawyer who brings a resume fat with legal wins, says it appears like the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office has something to hide.
“This is unprecedented,” he said of the DA’s recent office-wide gag order...

Brian Mahany, a fraud recovery and whistleblower claims lawyer with three decades of experience as an advocate and attorney, spoke with ACFCS about the role of compliance professionals as whistleblowers, and how the law protects – and sometimes generously rewards – those who report wrongdoings to the government.
Mahany has made a career out of defending fraud victims and whistleblowers who face retaliation from employers, sometimes leading to multi-million dollar recoveries or...

Nine Florida hospitals and one ambulance company have agreed to pay the federal government a total of $7.5 million to settle allegations that they defrauded Medicare by billing for unnecessary ambulance rides. Four of the hospitals were owned by HCA Holdings, Inc., and four were owned by Baptist Health. The other was UF Health Jacksonville. Despite the settlement, all nine hospitals denied any wrongdoing.
The settlement was reached following a four-year investigation by the US attorney's...

Two homeowners have told a New York federal court that Wells Fargo & Co. and Ocwen Financial Corp. illegally collected payments on mortgages they fraudulently declared in default, according to a False Claims Act suit made available Tuesday.Originally filed under seal in September 2014, plaintiffs Mr. and Mrs. Schiano claim the companies diverted a payoff they had made for refinancing their home and told the loan’s owner, government sponsored entity Freddie Mac, that the pair had...

The Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission are still reviewing allegations that Vanguard Group Inc.’s unusual business structure operates in violation of federal tax law, according to attorneys for former Vanguard tax lawyer David Danon, who brought the allegations to the agencies’ attention in 2013.
The IRS and SEC have not announced complaints against Malvern-based Vanguard and don’t comment on possible ongoing investigations. Vanguard...

Have you witnessed something illegal, unethical, or potentially fraudulent where you work?
If you rat out corporate bad behavior, you could win millions. Last year, for example, Edward O'Donnell, a former Countrywide Financial executive, won $58 million from parent company Bank of America in a case stemming from the sale of shoddy mortgages.
His award was part of a record $435 million the U.S. government paid in whistleblower awards, mostly related to health-care fraud and cases...

The Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission are still reviewing allegations that Vanguard Group Inc.'s unusual business structure operates in violation of federal tax law, according to attorneys for former Vanguard tax lawyer David Danon, who brought the allegations to the agencies' attention in 2013.
The IRS and SEC have not announced complaints against Malvern-based Vanguard and don't comment on possible ongoing investigations. Vanguard spokesman John Woerth...

Threats of U.S. prosecution loom over HSBC Holdings PLC due to reports that it helped clients hide cash from various tax authorities, and to avoid paying historic penalties like competitor Credit Suisse AG, the bank may want to show that it redoubled reform efforts after entering a corporate compliance monitorship.
The reports are the latest round of bad press for the British bank, which in 2012 agreed to pay the U.S. a $1.9 billion penalty and acquire a monitor over its alleged role in...

In her confirmation hearing this week to become the next U.S. attorney general, Loretta Lynch said that "no individual is too big to jail" and "no one is above the law."
But, at least in one recent case in which Lynch was a key player, this may not be accurate.
In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice found that British banking giant HSBC plc and its U.S. subsidiary had permitted Mexican and Colombian drug cartels to launder hundreds of millions of dollars undetected, and had...

Background In December 2012, HSBC USA Inc. and HSBC Holdings plc. (HSBC) entered into a five-year deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The bank agreed to pay nearly $2 billion in fines and restitution, enact reforms to prevent future legal violations and appoint a corporate compliance monitor.
Federal prosecutors did not seek criminal charges despite finding that at least $881 million in drug trafficking proceeds, including those made by Mexican and...