Posts Tagged ‘ Eckard ’

Whistle while you Work? Sad Reality in American Business

November 2nd, 2010. By Hunter West

Anyone who is aghast at the recent $750 million GlaxoSmithKline (Glaxo) whistleblower judgment to settle manufacturing deficiencies at a former plant in Puerto Rico shouldn’t be surprised that such things are going on. Happens all the time, it seems. And not just to Glaxo, either. 

In actual fact, that $750 million—of which the whistleblower earns a share of the penalty totaling a whopping $96 million—pales in comparison to the $3.1 billion that the US Department of Justice has recovered under the federal False Claims Act so far in just this fiscal year alone. 

Last year the haul was almost twice that—$5.6 billion. 

Some will say that the whistleblower is an opportunist hoping for a big payday in the end, and will take any amount of criticism and crap en route to the pot at the end of the rainbow. Hell, I’d put up with a lot of grief to collect $96 million. 

I would even eat liver. 

But to those who view whistleblowers as ambulance chasers, consider the amount of fraud and wrongdoing that serves as a persistent blight on the business landscape. Somebody has to expose such misdeeds—and if the government can’t route out the evil-doers (sorry ‘W’…) on their own, then they have to provide incentive for those who can. 

We would all wish that whistleblowers were not necessary. In a perfect world every business and corporate entity would operate with integrity and play by the rules.

Sadly, that’s not the case. 

According to Taxpayers Against Fraud, a not-for-profit that supports whistleblower lawsuits, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Avandia, Eckard, GlaxoSmithKline, GSK, paxil, Qui Tam, Whistleblower
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