On November 30, 2017, the SEC Office of the Whistleblower issued a bounty award of more than $16 million to two tipsters; each received an award of more than $8 million. The SEC denied awards to five other claimants....more
On July 27, 2017, the SEC announced that it was paying a $1.7 million bounty award to a whistleblower, even though the whistleblower: (1) had some culpability in the fraud; (2) unreasonably delayed reporting the fraud; and...more
On February 28, 2017, in an Order almost entirely devoid of detail, the SEC announced that a whistleblower will receive 20% of any monetary sanctions collected in an enforcement action commenced as a result of the...more
On September 27, 2016, Proskauer Partner Steven J. Pearlman, co-head of the Whistleblowing & Retaliation Practice Group, participated in a Bloomberg webinar with Jane Norberg, Acting Chief of the SEC Office of the...more
9/30/2016
/ Best Practices ,
Confidential Information ,
Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
FOIA ,
Internal Investigations ,
OSHA ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Webinars ,
Whistleblower Awards ,
Whistleblowers
On August 10, 2016, the SEC announced that BlueLinx Holdings Inc. (Company) is settling charges that it violated Rule 21F-17 by requiring outgoing employees to waive whistleblower bounty awards in connection with severance...more
8/12/2016
/ Confidentiality Agreements ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Government Agencies ,
Penalties ,
Rule 21F ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Severance Agreements ,
Termination ,
Whistleblower Awards ,
Whistleblowers
On May 20, 2016, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision of the ARB, finding that a former employee of Deltek, Inc. (Company) was retaliated against in violation of Section 806 of SOX and entitled to four years’ worth of...more
5/24/2016
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Review Board ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Front Pay ,
Protected Activity ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Termination ,
Whistleblower Awards ,
Whistleblowers
On April 4, 2016, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued its third and largest award, of more than $10 million, as part of its Dodd-Frank whistleblower program. As was the case with the CFTC’s two...more
On March 8, 2016, the SEC announced payment of nearly $2,000,000 in whistleblower bounty awards to three tipsters. (The order granting the award can be accessed here.) The largest of the three awards, approximately...more
On March 2, 2016, an Illinois Appellate court upheld a jury verdict awarding over $3 million to Plaintiff James Crowley (Plaintiff) on his whistleblower retaliation claim under the Illinois State Official and Employee Ethics...more
Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) recently introduced the Whistleblower Augmented Reward and Non-Retaliation Act of 2016 (“WARN Act”), which aims to bolster whistleblower protections under both...more
On November 4, 2015, the SEC announced that it would pay a former investment firm employee a whistleblower bounty award totaling more than $325,000. Notably, the SEC’s Order indicated that the award was decreased “because...more
On September 29, 2015, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it will make its second award as part of its whistleblower program, which was created by Dodd-Frank. The tipster will receive a...more
In response to the disagreement amongst courts regarding the scope of Dodd-Frank’s employment retaliation protections, on August 4, 2015, the SEC issued an “interpretive rule” clarifying that individuals who have not reported...more
On July 17, 2015, the SEC announced a whistleblower award of more than $3 million to a “company insider” whose information assisted the SEC in unveiling a “complex fraud.” This payout (which is the SEC’s third largest)...more
A Wall Street Journal article (subscription required) dated May 4, 2015 reports that a backlog of tips received by the SEC Office of the Whistleblower as part of its bounty program has resulted in a delay in paying awards to...more
Under the “Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act” (the Bill), which the U.S. Senate approved on April 28, 2015, whistleblower protections and bounties would be available to individuals who report motor vehicle defects. In...more
Wednesday, the SEC announced that it would pay an unidentified compliance officer a whistleblower bounty award of between $1.4 and $1.6 million. This is the second award that the SEC has made to a whistleblower with internal...more
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently deferred to the SEC’s determination that a tipster who provided information to the Commission before July 21, 2010, the effective date of the Dodd-Frank Act, is not eligible to...more
On March 2, 2015, the SEC announced an expected award of $475,000 to $575,000 to a former company officer “who reported original, high-quality information about a securities fraud that resulted in an SEC enforcement action...more
The ARB upheld a damages award in favor of a whistleblower after his former employer purportedly “blacklisted” him by providing an apparently negative employment reference to a prospective employer. Timmons v. CRST Dedicated...more
10/16/2014
/ Blacklist ,
Commercial Truck Drivers ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Former Employee ,
Reference Checks ,
Retaliation ,
Trucking Industry ,
Whistleblower Awards ,
Whistleblowers ,
Workplace Hazards
On September 26, 2014, OSHA issued a preliminary order that an Illinois employer, Stericycle Inc. (the Company), reinstate and pay $262,000 to a supervisor who was discharged after allegedly reporting safety concerns to...more
As discussed in a Law360 article by Ed Beeson, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will decide in Stryker v. SEC, No. 13-cv-4404, whether the SEC needs to pay Dodd-Frank whistleblower bounties to tipsters who provided...more
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration will seek to remove the $1.6 million cap on rewards to whistleblowers who provide evidence of criminal conduct by financial executives under the 1989 Financial...more
According to its recent press release, OSHA issued a preliminary order requiring SpongeTech Delivery Systems, Inc. of New York (Company), a cleaning product company, to pay a complainant $31,835.33 in back wages based on its...more
On June 3, 2014, the SEC issued an order that awarded two whistleblowers $437,500 each pursuant to Rule 21F of the Securities Exchange Act. This Order marks the SEC’s first award of 2014, and eighth award since the program...more