Press Room

By CURT ANDERSON,The Associated Press Friday, August 21, 2009 3:06 FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A former banker described by prosecutors as the man most responsible for sparking a broad U.S. investigation into rich Americans’ use of secret Swiss bank accounts to evade taxes was sentenced Friday to more than three years in federal prison. Prosecutors […]

National Whistleblowers Center Concerned That The Treatment of Mr. Birkenfeld Will Discourage Future Whistleblowers Washington, D.C. August 21, 2009.  Today whistleblower Bradley C. Birkenfeld was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months in prison for assisting a client at UBS to evade taxes.  Mr. Birkenfeld on his own initiative blew the whistle on UBS, Switzerland’s […]

Washington Times. August 20, 2009. White House attorneys have backed away from an effort to weaken legal protections for FBI whistleblowers in a bill now before Congress, according to advocacy groups in negotiations with the Obama administration. Officials from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Government Accountability Project (GAP) and Project on Government Oversight (POGO) […]

In March 2006, an American employee of UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, sent a confidential letter to a top executive. “I wish to invoke my rights listed under the UBS Whistleblowing Protection for Employees” policy, he wrote. With that, Bradley C. Birkenfeld fired the first shot in the historic and devastating assault on Swiss bank secrecy […]