On July 18, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted a defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment on a SOX whistleblower retaliation claim, holding that the Plaintiff did not have...more
8/7/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Cybersecurity ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Internal Investigations ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination ,
Whistleblowers
In a petition for a writ of mandamus filed on April 29, 2019 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, an unidentified whistleblower who claims to have tipped the SEC to alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt...more
On May 24, 2019, the SEC announced payment of more than $4.5 million to a whistleblower who sent an anonymous tip to the company alleging significant wrongdoing and then submitted the same information to the SEC....more
This is an update on our previous blog posts regarding the Erhart v. BofI Holding, Inc. case.
We previously reported in October 2017 and March 2017 on a whistleblower litigation brought by Charles Erhart, a former Bank of...more
Per our previous post, the European Parliament and the Member States agreed to adopt new rules that would set the standard for protecting whistleblowers across the EU from dismissal, demotion, and other forms of retaliation...more
On March 26, 2019, the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower announced two multi-million dollar awards to whistleblowers who provided the SEC with information that assisted the agency in bringing a successful enforcement action....more
On March 11, 2019, a federal court in Minnesota rejected an employer’s attempt to litigate a plaintiff’s state-law whistleblower claim in a federal forum, ruling it was insufficient that the plaintiff alleged violations of...more
According to a press release issued by the European Commission today, the European Parliament and the Member States have agreed to adopt new rules that set the standard for protecting individuals who blow the whistle on...more
According to data released by OSHA, the number of whistleblower complaints filed under SOX and the Consumer Financial Protection Act (“CFPA”) declined in 2018. OSHA received 45 complaints under the CFPA in 2018 (down 50% from...more
On February 26, 2019, the Ninth Circuit affirmed much of a jury’s approximately $11M verdict finding that a former general counsel was discharged in retaliation for reporting alleged Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”)...more
3/7/2019
/ Attorney-Client Privilege ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Internal Reporting ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On February 15, 2019, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Andeavor Corporation f/k/a Tesoro Corporation on a SOX whistleblower claim, concluding that the plaintiff lacked an objectively...more
On January 8, 2019, the DOL announced Secretary Alexander Acosta’s appointment of three new members to the Administrative Review Board (ARB), filling vacancies that had been open for months, and marking the first appointments...more
On December 21, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California stayed a plaintiff’s whistleblower retaliation claim under SOX (which was not subject to mandatory arbitration) while granting a motion...more
On July 12, 2018, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued its largest whistleblower award ever, approximately $30 million, as part of its Dodd-Frank whistleblower program. This is the first award under the...more
We previously reported in March and last October on a whistleblower litigation brought by Charles Erhart, a former Bank of Internet Holding, Inc. (BofI) internal auditor. On December 3, 2015, in a separate action, the...more
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently granted a motion for summary judgment against a Plaintiff claiming retaliatory blacklisting under SOX, holding that a former employer’s policy of refusing...more
4/2/2018
/ Blacklist ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Former Employee ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Protected Activity ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Summary Judgment ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On February 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an individual is not covered by the anti-retaliation provision of the Dodd-Frank Act unless they have provided information regarding a violation of law to...more
2/26/2018
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Digital Realty Trust Inc v Somers ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Internal Reporting ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
Last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that a terminated CEO’s complaints about his board of directors’ managerial decisions did not qualify as protected whistleblowing under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002...more
1/17/2018
/ CEOs ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Failure To Disclose ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Summary Judgment ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On December 5, 2017, the SEC announced a whistleblower award of more than $4.1 million to an overseas former company insider. The SEC declined to disclose the identity of the whistleblower or the company at issue...more
The Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) recently held that a former employee of Exelis Systems Corporation who was employed in Afghanistan could bring a SOX claim even though he worked exclusively outside...more
9/14/2017
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Review Board ,
Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Foreign Nationals ,
Mail Fraud ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers ,
Wire Fraud
On July 6, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed a whistleblower claim after determining that the plaintiff did not qualify as a whistleblower under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform...more
On June 26, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review whether individuals who do not report alleged securities law violations to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are “whistleblowers” protected by the...more
On April 28, 2017, the United States Department of Labor Administrative Review Board (“ARB”) allowed a whistleblower retaliation claim under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) to proceed even though the...more
6/8/2017
/ Administrative Appeals ,
Administrative Review Board ,
Affordable Care Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
EMTALA ,
Health Care Violations ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mental Health ,
Nurses ,
Pleadings ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
Telehealth ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On May 22, 2017, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC” or the “Commission”) adopted several additions to its whistleblower rules. Among other things, the amendments expand the Commission’s power to pursue...more
On May 11, 2017, the Northern District of New York applied the Second Circuit’s standard for evaluating a Dodd-Frank retaliation claim in response to a motion to dismiss under F.R.C.P. Rule 12(b)(6). The court denied the...more
5/25/2017
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Federal Rule 12(b)(6) ,
Former Employee ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Internal Reporting ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Objective Unreasonableness Standard ,
Popular ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Reasonableness Factors ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Whistleblowers ,
Wrongful Termination