A whistle blower at GE? Big battle brewing

Adriana Koeck, formerly an attorney at GE, is embroiled in quite a dispute with the company. She is being sued by GE for giving confidential company information, some of which she authored, to a reporter, who subsequently wrote a long article based on the information in Tax Notes International. The title: Blame It on Rio: GE's Brazilian Headache. It detailed an alleged tax fraud. Corporate Crime Reporter reports Koeck has filed a Sarbox complaint with the Department of Labor's Administrative Review board, charging that she was fired for reporting fraud to her superiors. She said she tried to broach matters of "irregular practices" with her superiors, but was brushed off. She was let go after about a year. In her complaint, she says the documents she allegedly took from GE, which she claims prove retaliation, are not covered by attorney-client privilege because of the crime-fraud exception. Sarbox whistleblowers have not fared well. We'll see if she proves to be an exception.

For more:
- here's the Corporate Crime Reporter article

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