|  | | 2004 News and Press Releases | | |
HEADLINE NEWS:
Whistleblower Complaints Are Up, But Why?
Adam Geller – The Associated Press
Law.com. November 23, 2004
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EXCERPT: Home on sick leave two years ago, Ammar Halloum says he watched the Enron Corp. investigation play out on television -- then decided he had to blow the whistle on his own employer. His former company, computer chip maker Intel Corp., says that's just a flimsy cover story. Halloum's whistleblower allegations -- that the company purposely delayed payments for factory parts to bolster its earnings -- are the invention of an employee who knew he was on thin ice for poor job performance, Intel says. Either way, the run-in between Halloum and Intel points to the tensions generated by a recent surge of workers accusing their firms of fraud or misconduct, a wave touched off by high-profile scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other firms. The rise in workers claiming whistleblower status began after Congress' approval of a law in 2002 offering new protection to corporate insiders willing to flag financial trickery at publicly traded companies. Just a handful of workers stepped forward at first, but 181 filed such complaints in the year ending Sept. 30, making them the fastest-growing category of whistleblower cases handled by the U.S. Department of Labor. Workers like Halloum seeking to take shelter under the new law, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, are just the most visible part of the rise in whistleblower complaints, including some by employees of privately owned companies, employment lawyers say. Other workers accusing their companies of misconduct are attempting to take shelter under state whistleblower laws and other measures. |
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