The risks that whistleblower take are enormous. They risk the jobs that give them the financial resources that they need to support themselves and their families; they risk their personal and professional reputations that they have worked so hard to build. They take the risk that they will be unable to find a job within the profession that they enjoy. They know that there is likely to be retaliation against them, cruel mistreatment both on the job and off. They risk humiliation, isolation, and getting reassigned to do mindless busywork, often out of sight of their co-workers. They risk all of these things because they feel compelled to stand up for what is right.

While whistleblowers often suffer much after they make after they disclose wrongdoing, that suffering sometimes bears much fruit. Wrongdoing exposed by whistleblowers can lead to investigations that reveal violations of the law. Companies and organizations that have been breaking the rules get held accountable for their actions. Improper business practices get brought to a halt. Individuals and organizations get required to pay back what they wrongfully acquired. The wrongs that the whistleblowers seek to expose do sometimes get made right as the eventual result of their actions.  The following story is an example of what can happen after a person speaks out to expose wrongdoing that they see in their work.

In 2005, Kamal Mustafa Al-Sultan, the general manager of a contracting firm that partnered with Agility Public Warehousing (Agility), a Kuwaiti logistics company, filed a civil whistleblower claim regarding Agility’s dealings in its contracts with the United States government. Agility was contracting with the government to provide food for American troops who were serving in Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq.

The whistleblower claim alleged that Agility Public Warehousing dealt fraudulently with the United States government, manipulating funding formulas, providing false statements and invoices, inflating food prices, and failing to pass along the discounts and rebates that it received from vendors even though passing along those savings was required by the terms of Agility’s contract with the government.

After that whistleblower claim got filed, the United States Department of Justice investigated Agility’s dealings with the government. The investigation revealed that Agility, through its fraudulent actions, had defrauded the United States government of nearly seventy million dollars. The Department of Justice confronted Agility with its allegations. Agility recently agreed to pay ninety-five million dollars to resolve the allegations of fraud that the Department of Justice brought against it. In conjunction with the settlement, Agility entered a guilty plea to the misdemeanor offense of theft of government funds.

The Mississippi Whistleblower Protection Attorneys of Barrett Law PLLC applaud the efforts of whistleblowers. It is not easy to expose wrongdoing within your workplace because the consequences can be harsh. However, your actions can make a huge difference as the case above illustrates. To learn more about whistleblower claims, call.1 (601) 790-1505 to arrange an initial consultation with the Mississippi Whistleblower Attorneys of Barrett Law PLLC.