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 3, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment on SOX and Dodd-Frank whistleblower retaliation claims, finding that the alleged...more
Various state and federal statutes exist to protect and compensate employees whose employers retaliate against them after they disclose certain fraudulent practices to the employers or government agencies. These are known as...more
While ethics and compliance scandals that implicate brand name companies tend to grab the headlines, smaller organizations have always borne the brunt of regulatory enforcement. Over the years, U.S. Sentencing Commission data...more
On March 4, 2014, the U.S. Supreme court in Lawson v. FMR, LLC, 134 S.Ct. 1158, held in a 6-3 decision that employees of a private company that is a contractor or subcontractor of public company are entitled to whistleblower...more
The Supreme Court recently wrapped up its 2013-2014 term, and management can count it as another successful year in front of the High Court. Of the nine decisions impacting labor and employment law, seven of them should have...more
On its face, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”) is concerned with the conduct of publicly-traded, not privately-held, companies. SOX, after all, grew out of the scandalous and widely damaging failures of public companies...more
Whistleblowing law continues to develop, with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that, despite ambiguous statutory language, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 protects employees of private companies serving as...more
During its recently concluded 2013 term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued decisions in two labor and employment cases, three constitutional or quasi-constitutional cases that impact labor and employment concerns, and one tax...more
In a case of first impression, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Lawson v. FMR LLC, 134 S. Ct. 1158 (2014)—that the whistleblower protection...more
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley”) was enacted following the accounting scandals of the early 2000s involving Enron, WorldCom and other public companies. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and...more
On March 4, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) providing protections for whistleblowers applies not only to employees of public companies, but also to employees of...more
In Lawson v. FMR, LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the whistleblower protections established in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) cover employees of a public company's private contractors and subcontractors, reversing...more
In 2002, after corporate fraud at Enron led to the company's collapse, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Under SOX's main whistleblower protection provision, an employee of a publicly traded company who claims...more
In a ground-breaking decision, on March 4, 2014, the United States Supreme Court held in Lawson v. FMR LLC, 571 U.S. __ Case 12-3 (Mar. 4, 2014), that §1514A of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 provides a right of action for...more
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that whistleblower protections of Sarbanes-Oxley extend not only to employees of public companies, but to the employees of their contractors and subcontractors. See Lawson...more
"The cover-up is often worse than the crime" – an apt mantra for employers who are being increasingly forced to defend retaliation and/or whistleblower claims brought in myriad industries under a broad spectrum of federal and...more
On March 4, 2014, the United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, expanded the protections offered to whistleblowers under anti-fraud laws, in Lawson v. FMR LLC. In its decision, the Court ruled that a specific...more
The Supreme Court of the United States on March 4, 2014 held that employees of a privately-held mutual fund investment adviser are protected under a whistleblower provision enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002...more
On March 4, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly expanded the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-retaliation law to cover employees of private contractors who perform services for publicly-traded companies. Passed in 2002 in the wake...more
A camel (so the saying goes) is a horse designed by committee. It seems the Supreme Court may think the same of the whistleblower provisions in § 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Section 806 prohibits retaliatory...more
In a landmark whistleblower decision by the United States Supreme Court, Lawson, et al. v. FMR LLC, et al., the Court held that the whistleblower protections under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”) apply not only to...more
On March 4, 2013, the Supreme Court issued an opinion with broad implications for mutual funds and certain other SEC-regulated companies that conduct business through or with privately-held entities (such as investment...more
In February, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the Fair Chance Ordinance, which limits when and to what extent employers can inquire into the criminal history of applicants and employees. The ordinance also...more
On March 4, 2014, in Lawson v. FMR, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a public company’s private contractors can be covered under the whistleblower protections of Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Supreme Court’s...more