Sarbanes-Oxley/Dodd-Frank

Whistleblower’s Ability to Breach Confidentiality Agreement – Do the Ends Justify the Means?

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It is common for employers to require employees whose job duties require access to confidential, sensitive, and/or proprietary information to sign confidentiality and/or non-disclosure agreements as a condition of employment. However, at least in limited circumstances involving whistleblowers, employers are finding that they may not be permitted to enforce such agreements under all circumstances.  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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Second Circuit Holds Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Provision Does Not Apply Extraterritorially

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Whistle

Last week, in Liu v. Siemens, AG, the Second Circuit held that the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower retaliation provision (15 U.S.C. 78u-6(h)(1)) does not apply extraterritorially, in the first Second Circuit decision to address the international scope of Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower protections against retaliation.  Liu, a citizen and resident of Taiwan, was a compliance officer for Siemens China Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens AG.  Siemens AG is a German corporation with shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange.  Liu claimed Siemens wrongfully terminated his employment in retaliation for reporting that Siemens China Ltd. employees were making improper payments to Chinese officials in North Korea and China in connection with the sale of medical equipment in those countries, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”).

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SEC Releases First Full-Year Report on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program: No Speedy Recoveries for Whistleblowers

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Whistle

On November 15, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission released its Fiscal Year 2012 Annual Report on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program (the “Report”), the first full-year report issued since the enactment of Dodd-Frank. The Report analyzes the 3,001 tips received over the last twelve months by the Commission’s Office of the Whistleblower (“OWB”) , which is responsible for the implementation and execution of the Commission’s whistleblower program. The Report also provides additional information on the whistleblower award evaluation process that resulted in its first (and only) award issuance in August 2012.

Activities of the Commission’s OWB

The OWB was created pursuant to Section 924(d) of the Dodd-Frank Act. OWB reviews and processes whistleblower tips through the Commission’s Tips, Complaints, and Referrals (“TCR”) System, leveraging resources of the Commission’s Office of Market Intelligence to evaluate tips and assign them to the appropriate division. OWB works closely with the Enforcement Division throughout the investigative process, serving as a liaison between the whistleblowers or their counsel and Enforcement staff. OWB arranges meetings between whistleblowers and investigators or subject matter experts within Enforcement to advance investigations. OWB also communicates with other agencies’ whistleblower offices, including the IRS, Department of Justice, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Department of Labor’s OSHA. READ MORE →