Bank of America to pay fired whistleblower $930,000

[ProSense]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp must reinstate a Countrywide whistleblower fired shortly after the two companies merged in 2008 and pay the employee $930,000, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.

The employee, whose name was not given, led internal investigations that found widespread fraud involving Countrywide employees. Reporting fraud to Countrywide's Employee Relations Department led to retaliation, the employee told the Labor Department.

"It's clear from our investigation that Bank of America used illegal retaliatory tactics against this employee," Occupational Safety and Health Administration Assistant Secretary David Michaels said in a statement.

Bank of America has had a rash of problems related to its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp, a major subprime lender accused of churning out loans to high-risk borrowers with little effort to check incomes or ability to repay.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-america-pay-fired-whistleblower-930-000-211617907.html

[pmorlan1]

1. Great News

Sometimes things turn out like they are supposed to turn out. I hope they lose on appeal.

[InkAddict]

2. They will pay the fine w/the salaries of those they will lay off next.

Karma can be good and bad at the same time. The soldiers aren't the only ones laying down their lives for their hateful
"let them die" countrymen. See, I've reframed things: I'm so grateful to be able to share the ultimate sacrifice for their right to kill us by mandate and policy; long live the job-creators of the New American Century! :sarcasm:

[TNLib]

3. I hope this encourages more whistle blowers!

I often feel people are too loyal to their employers and former employers.

[earcandle]

4. Oh! I would like someone to prove that the City and County of San Francisco did that to me twice...

and I would bet if we could access the internal emails, there
were discriminatory comments in HR emails ever since to keep
my great analysis and GAAP accounting skills out of
government.  Any takers on contingency?  

[24601]

6. SF is very progressive -just ask nicely & say please. n/t

[katty]

5. better get that $ in hard cash-NO checks accepted!

[russspeakeasy]

7. They will pay....$100 each year

:evilgrin:

[No Elephants]

8. Whistleblowers and the Obama administration

"But whistle-blower advocates are also concerned by another type of case moving forward on Obama's watch. "Former NSA official Thomas Drake might serve years in prison, not for leaking intelligence, but for telling the Baltimore Sun that the NSA was allegedly wasting taxpayer money on ineffective technologies. He was charged with mishandling classified material and obstructing justice in April 2010. At publication time, the Justice Department had not responded to queries about specific cases.

The prosecutions of those five leakers strike some, like Kucinich, as inconsistent for a President who signed a January 2009 memo to top government executives encouraging more transparency. "The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears," Obama wrote. "President Obama came to office promising a new transparency," Kucinich says. "We are getting the opposite."

Others see the prosecutions as a warning shot to leakers a long time in the making. "In every case, the decision to prosecute was made in the Obama Administration even when the alleged disclosure took place years ago," Aftergood says. "I think Obama, like every other President, has been appalled by the unauthorized disclosure of internal Administration deliberations, and he has sent out a signal that they should be forcefully repudiated."

Much more at: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2058340,00.html#ixzz1Y0sljGoy