On August 14, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit became the first U.S. appellate court to weigh in on the extraterritorial application of the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street...more
In an opinion filed August 5, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal held that Florida’s unclaimed property law does not make life insurance proceeds due and payable at the time of the insured’s death and does not impose an...more
On July 3, the Supreme Court of Texas issued a significant opinion in Brookshire Brothers, Ltd. v. Jerry Aldridge, No. 10-0846 (Tex. 2014), that clarifies the standards governing the spoliation of evidence in Texas as well as...more
The U.S. Supreme Court held yesterday that defendants in securities fraud class actions can defeat the Basic fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance at the class certification stage “through evidence that the...more
On June 16, 2014, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated and resolved its first case charging an employer with unlawfully retaliating against a securities whistleblower under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street...more
On June 3, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) issued a whistleblower award to two individuals who had provided information leading to a successful SEC enforcement action. The whistleblower...more
During a recent panel discussion at the Georgetown University Law Center’s 18th Annual Corporate Counsel Institute, the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Whistleblower, Sean McKessy, warned...more
On Friday, March 7, 2014, the National Conference of Insurance Legislators’ (NCOIL) Unclaimed Property Task Force (Task Force) met in-person at NCOIL’s spring meeting. Led by the Task Force’s Co-Chair George Keiser (ND), the...more
In the first SOX whistleblower case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court held on March 4 that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) prohibits private contractors of publicly traded companies from retaliating...more
In a significant decision issued February 24, 2014, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal laws preempt state laws in the case of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, because the event occurred in federal...more
In a decision announced at the end of 2013 in the case of FDIC v. Steven Skow, et al., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected an argument proposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that...more
This week the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp. that parens patriae actions in which the State is the sole plaintiff are not “mass actions” under the Class Action Fairness...more
A recurring question under the federal whistleblower laws is whether plaintiffs suing their employers for retaliation have the right to a jury trial. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act1 appears...more
1/10/2014
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Consumer Protection Act ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Jury Trial ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Termination ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On December 12, 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its preliminary report on the use of arbitration clauses in consumer financial products and services. The preliminary report focuses on...more
In a recent order denying a whistleblower’s award claim,1 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission upheld the prospective application and discovery limitations of two of its rules implementing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street...more
On August 5, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its third opinion since May of this year in Dejesus v. HF management Services, LLC, affirming the dismissal of Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claims...more
Since the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, a number of federal courts have grappled with the scope of the Act’s new protections for employee “whistleblowers.” Until recently,...more
On June 24, 2013, a divided U.S. Supreme Court issued much-anticipated decisions in two Title VII cases in which the Court provided some needed certainty and relief to employers on the front lines of employment litigation. In...more
6/26/2013
/ But For Causation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Harassment ,
Nassar ,
Retaliation ,
SCOTUS ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII ,
UT Southwestern Medical v Nassar ,
Vance v. Ball State University ,
Vicarious Liability
In Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York recently held that Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower protections can extend to employees who do not qualify as statutory “whistleblowers.”...more