Posts by: Mike Delikat

EEOC Won’t Get its Prescription Filled at CVS: Case Challenging its Releases Dismissed on Summary Judgment

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On October 7th, a federal district judge granted summary judgment against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in its lawsuit against CVS. The EEOC had challenged the nation’s largest integrated provider of prescriptions and health-related services for its employee separation agreement. The EEOC’s Chicago office had filed the suit in February, alleging the company’s separation agreement violated its employees’ Title VII rights to communicate with the EEOC and file discrimination charges. READ MORE →

SEC Puts Their Money Where Their Mouth Is: $30 Million Awarded to Whistleblower

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Whistle

On September 22, 2014, the SEC announced its largest whistleblower award to date under its Dodd-Frank whistleblower bounty program. It awarded $30-$35 million to an anonymous whistleblower who the Commission said provided original information about an ongoing fraud that would otherwise have been difficult to detect.  That information led to the successful enforcement of an SEC action as well as unspecified related actions.  The SEC stated that the whistleblower’s award would have been even higher if he/she had not unreasonably delayed in coming forward, though the agency did not apply the unreasonable delay consideration as severely as it otherwise would have because some of the delay occurred before the whistleblower program’s inception.

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OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee Discusses Planning, New Initiatives

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OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee (“WPAC”) met on September 3-4, 2014.  David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor, OSHA, addressed the Committee and discussed recent results and initiatives of OSHA’s whistleblower program.  Some highlights:

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Second Circuit Rejects Definitively and Specifically Standard But Upholds Dismissal of SOX Whistleblower Complaint in Nielsen v. AECOM

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Last week, the Second Circuit upheld a district court’s dismissal of a plaintiff’s Sarbanes-Oxley (“SOX”) whistleblower claim – but not before rejecting the “definitively and specifically” standard on which the district court’s decision relied.  Nielsen v. AECOM Tech. Corp., No. 13-235-cv (2d Cir. Aug. 8, 2014).

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Can You Hear the Whistle Blowing?: SEC Punishes Company that Did Not Address Fraud Allegations by Whistleblower

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Whistle

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently announced the latest whistleblower bounty awarded under the Dodd-Frank Act, which authorizes rewards for original information about violations of securities laws.  Whistleblowers can receive 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected in an SEC enforcement action where the monetary sanctions imposed exceed $1 million.

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SEC Charges Hedge Fund Adviser with Whistleblower Retaliation under Dodd-Frank

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Whistle

On June 16, 2014, the SEC issued its first-ever charge of whistleblower retaliation under section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act, charging a hedge fund advisor and its owner with “engaging in prohibited principal transactions and then retaliating against the employee who reported the trading activity to the SEC.” READ MORE →

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Issues First Whistleblower Award

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Whistle

On Monday, May 19, 2014, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) issued its first award to a whistleblower under its Dodd-Frank bounty program.

The Commission will pay $240,000 to an unidentified whistleblower who “voluntarily provided original information that caused the Commission to launch an investigation that led to an enforcement action” in which the judgment and sanctions exceeded $1 million. The heavily redacted award determination on the CFTC’s website does not reveal the name of the implicated company, the nature of the wrongdoing involved, the percentage of bounty the whistleblower received (which is required to be between 10 and 30 percent pursuant to the statute), or the factors considered in determining the percentage of the bounty.

Prior to this first grant of an award to a whistleblower under the CFTC’s Dodd-Frank bounty program, there were 25 denials of award claims. The reasons for the denials primarily fell into one or more of several categories:

  1. the individuals provided information before the passage of Dodd-Frank;
  2. they did not file a form TCR as required by the regulations;
  3. they did not provide information “voluntarily” but rather in response to a Commission request; and/or
  4. the information did not cause the Commission to open or expand an investigation or significantly contribute to a success of a Commission matter.

Time will tell whether this first award will have any effect on the number of whistleblowers who report to the CFTC or the quality of information the Commission receives.

Unpaid, but Not Unprotected: New York City Extends Human Rights Law to Protect Interns

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As reported by us in recent blog articles (Do as I Say, Not as I Do: Differences in Duties Means No Commonality, No Class Certification for Unpaid Interns and The High Cost of Hiring Unpaid Interns), employment issues surrounding unpaid interns are on the rise. While the bulk of the debate has centered on wage-and-hour issues, some have argued that interns should be afforded the same protections from workplace discrimination and harassment as employees. New York City has now adopted that view. READ MORE →

Complaint about Foreign Tax Violations Sunk Under SOX

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Whistle

On February 12, 2014, the Fifth Circuit in Villanueva v. U.S. Department of Labor held that an employee did not engage in protected activity under SOX when he reported alleged violations of Columbian tax laws to U.S. executives at his employer. READ MORE →