On August 23, 2024, the SEC announced payment of more than $98 million in total to two whistleblowers who provided the SEC with information and assistance that led to successful enforcement actions by the SEC and another...more
On July 26, 2024, the SEC announced an award of more than $37 million to a whistleblower who first reported misconduct internally and subsequently provided information and assistance that led to a successful SEC enforcement...more
A recent California district court addressed the question of whether, for insurance coverage purposes, a SOX whistleblower claim is a “securities claim,” and answered that question in the affirmative. Skye Bioscience v....more
On May 27, 2022, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an order by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) denying a whistleblower award under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act...more
On April 15, 2021, the SEC announced payment of more than $50 million to joint whistleblowers who provided the SEC with information that resulted in the return of tens of millions of dollars to harmed investors....more
The SEC announced on April 8, 2021 the departure of Jane Norberg, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower. Ms. Norberg had been with the Office nearly since its inception in 2012, serving as its first Deputy Chief and...more
On January 13, 2021, a New York whistleblower attorney filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging a recent final rule adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission...more
This yearly report provides a summary of some of the significant changes and developments that occurred in the past year in the hedge fund and private equity spaces, as well as certain recommended practices that investment...more
On October 22, 2020, the SEC announced an award of over $114 million to a whistleblower who, after reporting internally to their employer, provided the SEC with information and assistance that led to the successful...more
On September 30, 2020, the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower announced multi-million dollar awards to two whistleblowers who provided the SEC with information that assisted the agency in bringing a successful enforcement...more
On June 29, 2020, the Administrative Review Board (“ARB”) upheld the dismissal of a whistleblower retaliation complaint under Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) for failure to file within the 180-day statutory...more
8/5/2020
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Review Board ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equitable Tolling ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On June 12, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted a motion to dismiss in favor of the defendant in a SOX whistleblower retaliation case, finding that the alleged whistleblower – a contractor...more
On June 4, 2020, the SEC announced a nearly $50 million award to a whistleblower who provided the SEC with detailed, first-hand information that assisted the agency in bringing a successful enforcement action. While tipsters...more
On April 16, 2020, the SEC announced payment of more than $27 million to a whistleblower who alerted the agency to misconduct that had occurred, in part, overseas.
In explaining the reason for its award determination, the...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
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
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 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 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
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