On February 21, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the anti-retaliation provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act does not extend to an individual who has not...more
In orders issued just six days apart last month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected language in severance agreements requiring employees to waive rights to receive additional monetary recovery,...more
As we forecast in our August 2015 post, “The SEC’s Interpretative Guidance on Internal Whistleblowing Under the Dodd-Frank Act,” a federal court of appeals today issued a decision in line with the U.S. Securities and Exchange...more
On August 4, 2015, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an interpretive rule stating that whistleblowers who report misconduct internally—not just those who report to the SEC—are protected by the...more
In This Issue:
- Supreme Court Revives Pregnant UPS Worker's Suit
- Spouses of H-1B Visa Holders Applying for Residency Eligible for Work Permits
- Turning Metrics Into Money: An Interview With Solange Charas,...more
4/23/2015
/ Age Discrimination ,
Discrimination ,
H-1B ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Spouses ,
Title VII ,
UPS ,
Visas ,
Whistleblowers ,
Young v United Parcel Service
As we reported in a previous post, “SEC Investigating Companies’ Employment Contracts That Restrict Whistleblowing,” the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been vocal about its concerns regarding the effects of...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may soon be investigating the agreements companies make with their employees. According to a February 25, 2015 Wall Street Journal report, the SEC has sent requests to several...more
2014 was a record-breaking year for whistleblowers, including both the U.S. Department of Justice’s prosecution of cases under the False Claims Act (FCA) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s prosecution of cases...more
2/23/2015
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Compliance ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Enforcement ,
Federal Contractors ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Healthcare Fraud ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Qui Tam ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Whistleblowers
The Southern District of California recently issued a favorable ruling for employers under both the False Claims Act and California’s retaliatory discharge provision codified at California Labor Code section 1102.5. The court...more
On June 16, 2014, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) resolved its first whistleblower retaliation enforcement action. The SEC’s order against Paradigm Capital Management, Inc. is the first-ever enforcement...more
As we have discussed in earlier posts, the recent trend in court decisions under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) has been to lighten the burden on complainants and to expand the universe of cases that proceed to decisions on the...more
Employers defending against Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) whistleblower retaliation claims should be prepared for a long and potentially onerous litigation process, even if the claims lack merit. A recent district court decision...more
Attention all employers with employees in California: On October 12, 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill (SB) 496, amending the whistleblower retaliation provisions set forth in section 1102.5 of...more
As we have discussed before, whistleblower and retaliation decisions—including from the Supreme Court of the United States—have created an increasingly whistleblower-friendly body of law that unifies courts across the...more
As we have discussed in earlier posts, the Administrative Review Board (ARB) has, over the last couple of years, issued a number of opinions signaling a decidedly employee-friendly interpretation of the whistleblower statutes...more
As you may have read in our previous blog post, prudent employers should embrace the “righteous whistleblower” in service of their culture of compliance. But what is an employer to do when a whistleblower has engaged in...more
The process of filing whistleblower complaints just became a lot easier. On December 5, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) launched a new system that will allow workers...more
As highlighted in our earlier blog post, a company’s response to a whistleblower complaint is the key to how the company will fare going forward....more
On January 29, 2013, the new Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee (WPAC) held its inaugural meeting in Washington, D.C. Made up of 12 members, the WPAC includes three members representing the public, four members...more
There has been much ink, real and digital, spilled on speculating about how the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) whistleblower program may affect companies’ internal compliance programs and the volume of...more
Over the past two years, we have seen the approach that the Administrative Review Board (ARB) has taken with respect to the scope and coverage of Dodd-Frank In almost every instance, the ARB has expanded the scope and...more
Federal agencies charged with investigating whistleblower claims—and in some cases, bringing enforcement actions—are looking hard at what companies are doing to create a “culture of compliance.” Failing to cultivate a culture...more
The importance of prompt and effective investigations of employee reports of wrongdoing has never been higher. Dodd-Frank and its changes to Sarbanes-Oxley have yielded a large increase in the number of reports—with much...more