On June 7, 2022, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, relying on recent ARB decisions, held that a plaintiff who lived and worked for a Canadian subsidiary of a US company could not avail...more
7/18/2022
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Foreign Workers ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Internal Reporting ,
Multinationals ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On October 28, 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a bill dramatically expanding New York’s whistleblower statute, New York Labor Law § 740, which is scheduled to take effect on January 26, 2022. ...more
In recent weeks, there have been numerous widely reported incidents of employees, particularly those in the health care industry, claiming that they have been retaliated against for reporting health and safety concerns...more
As reported in Proskauer’s Labor Relations Update blog, the NLRB issued an important opinion on December 17, 2019 relating to employer rules requiring confidentiality from employees during workplace investigations. Apogee...more
12/19/2019
/ Confidentiality Agreements ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Internal Investigations ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRB ,
Rule 21F-17 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
White Collar Crimes ,
Workplace Investigations
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
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
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
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 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 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
Recently, a California federal court denied the defendant–employer’s motion for a new trial, upholding the jury’s $7.96 million verdict finding that the Company terminated its former general counsel for reporting alleged...more
5/23/2017
/ Attorney-Client Privilege ,
Bio-Rad Laboratories ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Internal Reporting ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Motion for JMOL ,
Motion For New Trial ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On March 8, 2017, a split three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Northern District of California decision declining to dismiss a Dodd-Frank whistleblower retaliation claim because the plaintiff did...more
3/9/2017
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Failure to Report ,
Internal Communications ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Whistleblowers
Over the past week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced two multi-million dollar awards to whistleblowers who provided the SEC with information in ongoing investigations.
On May 13, 2016, the...more
On March 28, 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed an amicus brief in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former in-house attorney against Vanguard Group (the “Company”). The case is Danon v....more
4/4/2016
/ Amicus Briefs ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Internal Reporting ,
Protected Activity ,
Retaliation ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Termination ,
Vanguard ,
Whistleblowers ,
Young Lawyers
On July 18, 2014, a coalition of plaintiff-side lawyers and government watchdog groups proposed ways to strengthen the SEC whistleblower program in two petitions filed with the SEC. The groups urged the SEC to update Rule...more
Sean McKessy (“McKessy”), the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) whistleblower chief, cautioned in-house attorneys who draft contracts incentivizing employees to report securities fraud complaints in-house rather...more