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
Summary - Section 21F of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) governs the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC or the Commission) whistleblower program, which pays awards to eligible whistleblowers...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
The SEC’s whistleblower program provides for awards in amounts between 10% and 30% of the monetary sanctions collected in an SEC action based on the whistleblower’s original information. The program, which has been in place...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“Commission” or “SEC”) whistleblower program has, by all accounts, been a huge success. Added to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) as Section 21F by the...more
On September 23, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in a 3-2 vote, approved several significant amendments to, and interpretive guidance on, the rules governing its whistleblower program. Most...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently awarded $3 million to joint whistleblowers despite concluding that the whistleblowers did not satisfy the technical eligibility requirements for receiving an award. See...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
The SEC has fined an Atlanta company $265,000 for using various severance agreements restricting whistleblower activities. The Dodd-Frank Act added ’34 Act § 21F encouraging whistleblower programs....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
Wednesday, the SEC announced that an Atlanta-based company, BlueLinx Holdings, is settling charges that its severance agreements contained provisions that in its view might impede employees from communicating directly with...more
September 10, 2015, in a 2-1 decision in Berman v. Neo@Ogilvy LLC, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that whistleblowers who report securities law violations internally but not to the US Securities and...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit created a federal appellate split today when it revived a Dodd-Frank Act retaliation claim by an ex-finance director, who was responsible for the company’s financial reporting...more
On August 4, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or “the Commission”) issued guidance that further clarifies the Dodd-Frank Act’s anti-retaliation provision. According to the Commission, Section 21F of the...more
There has been a debate about whether a whistleblower must report information about a violation of securities laws to the SEC, as opposed to internal reporting, to qualify for protection under the anti-retaliation provisions...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
On April 1, 2015, the SEC announced its first enforcement action against a company for utilizing language in a confidentiality agreement which could discourage whistleblowing....more
Confidentiality agreements are boilerplate in many legal departments, but they shouldn't be. In-house counsel need to review all currently effective confidentiality agreements with anyone who could potentially be a...more
I was on a flight last Wednesday when the SEC released the first of what whistleblower chief Sean McKessy has dubbed “pretaliation” cases against KBR, Inc. When I landed I had several emails from colleagues, asking, “Did you...more