On September 9, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced settled charges against seven public companies for violations of certain whistleblower protections provided by Rule 21F-17 under the Securities...more
Section 21F, titled "Whistleblower Incentives and Protection," is a set of provisions within the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that govern, among other things, the rights and obligations of SEC whistleblowers and the...more
Risk Alert (literally)! Standard provisions in employment agreements, severance agreements and policies may run afoul of the SEC’s whistleblower regulations. In the wake of several highly publicized enforcement actions by the...more
On October 24, 2016, OCIE published a risk alert noting that the SEC exam staff intends to examine registrants' compliance with the Dodd-Frank Act's whistleblower provisions. The alert noted recent enforcement actions...more
Last week, the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) issued a Risk Alert regarding examinations of investment adviser and broker-dealer registrants' compliance with key whistleblower provisions...more
On October 24, Staff in the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (the “Staff”) issued a National Exam Program Risk Alert announcing that it is examining registered investment advisers and registered...more
SEC staff in the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations are examining compliance with key whistleblower provisions arising out of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The staff is...more
As we discussed in our June 2011 Bulletin, available here, SEC rules promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act), pursuant to Section 21F thereunder as enacted by the Dodd-Frank Wall...more
On Aug. 15, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued its second fine in six days to an employer for drafting severance agreements that restricted former employees from collecting awards as whistleblowers. The fines...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently announced that two companies agreed to pay penalties of more than $500,000, combined, for illegally requiring employees to waive their rights to monetary awards from the...more
In less than one week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced enforcement actions against two companies that had required their departing employees to waive their rights to any monetary recovery under the...more
In April 2015, the SEC announced in a first-of-its-kind enforcement action that certain KBR, Inc. confidentiality agreements violated the whistleblower protections of the Dodd-Frank Act by requiring employees and former...more
Public companies should revisit their template severance agreements, in light of two recent orders by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Standard severance clauses covering (1) confidential information and (2)...more
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
On Friday, July 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will award more than $3 million to a company insider who helped the SEC “crack a complex fraud.”...more
Public companies should review their confidentiality arrangements for any provisions that may result in unintended violations of the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower protections....more
Employers paying severance to separated employees usually require written release agreements that include a confidentiality provision. The employee is prohibited from disclosing the existence of the agreement, or from...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced on April 1, 2015 that it was instituting enforcement proceedings relating to the whistleblower provisions of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer...more