On April 3, 2017, the federal government ordered Wells Fargo to reinstate a former bank manager who lost his job after reporting suspected fraudulent behavior at the bank and will have to pay him $5.4 million in back pay, damages and legal fees.
According to the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), allegedly the manager was "abruptly" forced to leave a Los Angeles branch of the bank in 2010, after he told superiors he suspected two of his subordinates of bank, mail and wire fraud. The manager also called the bank's ethics hot line.
“He verbally told his managers, and he also called the hotline,” said Barbara Goto, regional administrator for OSHA. “Because of that, he was retaliated against by Wells Fargo.”
Reportedly, Wells Fargo stated that the former manager, who was not named by the Labor Department or the bank, had worked in the bank’s wealth management group.
Based in San Francisco, Wells Fargo has been in turmoil since admitting that its employees, under pressure to meet aggressive sales goals, opened as many two million fraudulent accounts. Wells Fargo fired thousands of employees who were involved and paid $185 million to settle lawsuits brought by two federal regulators and the Los Angeles city attorney.
Federal whistle-blower laws prohibit companies from retaliating against workers for reporting legal violations, either internally or to government officials.
