Justice Department Weighs in Against Wells Fargo in a Whistle-Blower Suit -<br />By GRETCHEN MORGENSONJUNE 6, 2017<br />Fresh woes for Wells Fargo and a victory for two of its whistle-blowers occurred late Tuesday when the Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief<br />in a lawsuit brought against the bank by two former employees, who were fired after they tried to report misdeeds they had observed to their supervisors.<br />The government’s filing adds heft to a long-running case<br />that involves behavior that predates the 2008 financial crisis and the sham-accounts scandal that came to light at Wells Fargo last year.<br />The whistle-blowers who filed the case worked at Wachovia and World Savings, banks that were folded into Wells Fargo.<br />Wells Fargo absorbed World Savings and Wachovia into its operations in 2008, and it has been vigorously defending the case.<br />Although the Justice Department’s filing does not opine on the whistle-blowers’ claims, it argues<br />that an appellate court should revise the analysis it made when it dismissed the case last year.
