AP
Recently, a former employee of Deutsche Bank hit the jackpot. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission awarded this publicly unnamed whistleblower almost $200 million for supplying “specific, credible, and timely original information” that aided the agency in its investigation into the illegal rigging of inter-bank interest rates. This was the largest whistleblower payment in history.
The former bank employee now joins a select group of whistleblowers who not only spoke out and were heard by the authorities, but also were rewarded handsomely for their effort. The system worked this time, but far more often those who attempt to blow the whistle are ignored, silenced and punished.
West Point graduate and Gulf War veteran John Kopchinski also is a member of this group. Although he ultimately received $51.5 million for informing authorities about illegal sales practices at Pfizer, Kopchinski’s road to fortune was anything but easy.
Working as a sales rep at the pharmaceutical behemoth, he had become increasingly uneasy about how Pfizer pushed him to get doctors to prescribe the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug Bextra for unapproved uses and allegedly at ever higher doses. Kopchinski had tried to alert his superiors about bad practices, but was frustrated that the “ethical line kept moving.” He even lost his $125,000-a-year job. And over the course of the six-year legal battle, he almost entirely depleted his retirement savings.
Whistleblowing is not for the...
BreakingNews Sarma further accused the TMC of allowing cattle smuggling to Bangladesh to continue for vested interests. Published on: Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday ...