Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetLaw360 recently indicated in its lead story the broad implications of the recent ruling in Kramer v. Trans-Lux for financial whistleblowers.  The Kramer decision marked the first time a Dodd-Frank whistleblower’s retaliation claim has survived a motion to dismiss when, earlier this week, a federal judge embraced an expansive definition of whistleblower under Dodd-Frank. The [...]

[Read more →]

TweetLaw360 recently reported in its lead article on Kramer v. Trans-Lux Corp. , the first court decision allowing a Dodd-Frank Act retaliation suit to survive a motion to dismiss.  In the article, Law360 quoted Nicholas Woodfield, principal at The Employment Law Group® law firm and attorney for Richard Kramer, the whistleblower who brought the lawsuit. [...]

[Read more →]

TweetOn Tuesday, September 25, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut ruled that the definition of “whistleblower” under the Dodd-Frank Act encompasses individuals who make disclosures required or protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  Plaintiff’s Richard Kramer’s case against former employer Trans-Lux is the first Dodd-Frank claim [...]

[Read more →]

TweetOn April 18, 2012 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a compliance bulletin announcing its intention to clamp down on discriminatory lending practices.  According to the bulletin, the CFPB plans to use a variety of available legal strategies – including disparate impact claims – to crack down on lenders and other financial institutions whose [...]

[Read more →]

TweetAccording to The Employment Law Group® law firm’s managing principal, R. Scott Oswald, “2011 marked a sea change for whistleblowers at the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB).”  The Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal recently published an article by Mr. Oswald which discusses the impact of recent ARB decisions on whistleblower protection and describes why “2011 was [...]

[Read more →]

TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group®, was recently interviewed and quoted by Workforce Management Magazine on the subject of expanded whistleblower protection under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In 2010, Dodd-Frank amended the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and expanded whistleblower protections to include “nationally recognized statistical rating organizations” [...]

[Read more →]

TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® recently published an article in The Washington Post discussing new expansions of employee rights in the areas of whistleblower protection and wage and hour law. In the piece, Mr. Oswald discussed recent developments in employee protection law that, if ignored, could result in penalties and [...]

[Read more →]

TweetAccording to a report this week in the Financial Times, the chief of the Securities Exchange Commission’s new Whistleblower Office, Sean McKessey, stated that the SEC has “received notes, audio recordings of conversations and simple recollections” of securities fraud and other wrongdoing since a new whistleblower reward program promising rewards for whistleblowers began last year. [...]

[Read more →]

TweetOn December 22, 2011, the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) issued a 3-2 en banc decision that limits the application of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) outside of the United States. The case, Villanueva v. Core Laboratories, ARB No. 09-108, ALJ No. 2009-SOX-006 (ARB December 22, 2011), centered around a whistleblower complaint filed by [...]

[Read more →]

TweetOn January 5, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a two-year statute of limitations was the appropriate period for assessing the timeliness of an action brought by a private employee alleging retaliation by a former employer in violation of the False Claims Act (FCA). The plaintiff, Michael Riddle, allegefs [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Morris Jones of Capital Insider interviewed The Employment Law Group® law firm attorney Adam Augustine Carter on the recent changes in whistleblower and employment law that will affect employees in 2012. The points Mr. Carter makes are that: There are almost 2 million home health aides and in-home care providers working in our country. Now with [...]

[Read more →]

TweetAccording to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Mary Schapiro, the SEC’s new whistleblower program is already providing “significant benefits” one year after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In a letter sent to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), co-author of Dodd-Frank, SEC Chairman Schapiro argued that recent calls to [...]

[Read more →]

TweetAccording to a recent study commissioned by Labaton Sucharow LLP, a securities and antitrust law firm, approximately three-quarter of Americans say that they would be willing to report wrongdoing in the workplace, as long as they were protected against retaliation, could remain anonymous, and would receive a monetary reward. The “Ethics and Action Survey,” conducted [...]

[Read more →]

TweetThis week Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) announced that he would not seek a 17th term in office and would retire from the House of Representatives at the end of his current term. Rep. Frank served as the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee from 2007 to 2011 and co-authored the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street [...]

[Read more →]

TweetThe Securities and Exchange Commission released its first annual report on the new SEC Whistleblower Award Program, covering the period from the program’s inception on August 12 to the end of fiscal year 2011 on September 30.  During those seven weeks, the Commission received an astounding 334 whistleblower tips from individuals in 37 states, as well [...]

[Read more →]

TweetFollowing the lead of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) adopted finalized rules for its new Whistleblower Reward Program that heavily favor whistleblowers.  Importantly, the rules do not require whistleblowers to first report wrongdoing to their employer; instead whistleblowers may report wrongdoing directly to the CFTC. The CFTC is an independent agency [...]

[Read more →]

TweetThe SEC Whistleblower Reward Program signed into law last year under theDodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is effective as from today, August 12, 2011. As the U.S. economy continues to struggle, compounded by a lowered Standard & Poor’s rating that sent the New York Stock Exchange and European markets spiraling, corporate whistleblower cases [...]

[Read more →]

TweetOn June 30, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in United States ex rel. Wilkins v. United Health Group  overturned the decision of the lower court and held in favor of whistleblowers Charles Wilkins and Daryl Willis.  The whistleblowers allege that United Health Group (UHG) provided kickbacks to those [...]

[Read more →]

TweetThe DOL Administrative Review Board has issued a very significant en banc decision on the whistleblower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) that significantly strengthens the statute by clarifying the broad scope of protected conduct.  The ARB’s opinion in Sylvester v. Parexel International LLC, ARB No. 07-123, ALJ Nos. 2007-SOX-039, 042 (May 25, 2011) represents a substantial [...]

[Read more →]

TweetThe Securities and Exchange Commission is being praised by whistleblower advocates for issuing finalized rules that will effectively incentivize employees to disclose fraud and other securities law violations.  The Dodd-Frank Act – enacted in July of 2010 – established a new whistleblower program within the SEC, requiring the SEC to reward whistleblowers who provide original [...]

[Read more →]

TweetThe Securities and Exchange Commission is receiving praise from whistleblower advocates for issuing finalized rules that do not require whistleblowers to report fraudulent or illegal activity internally to their employer, but instead allow whistleblowers to blow the whistle direct to the SEC. The Dodd-Frank Act established a new whistleblower program at the SEC, requiring the [...]

[Read more →]

TweetInvestment News reported that Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y. circulated draft legislation that would require a whistleblower to first report fraud through an internal compliance program as a prerequisite to recovering an award before the whistleblower would be eligible for a reward from the SEC under the whistleblower reward provision of the Dodd-Frank Act.  TELG opposes [...]

[Read more →]

TweetInvestmentNews.com reported that Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., presented legislation that would require whistleblowers to first report fraud trough their employer’s internal compliance program before they would be eligible for a reward from the SEC under the Dodd-Frank Act. During a House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets hearing, the drafters related a concern that whistlblowers [...]

[Read more →]

TweetThe U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a good decision for whistleblowers providing much needed clarity on the scope of the anti-retaliation provision in Section 922(h), which prohibits retaliation for the following acts: (1) “providing information to the Commission in accordance with this section;” (ii) “initiating, testifying in, or assisting in any [...]

[Read more →]

TweetLaura Schreier wrote an article in Banker & Tradesmen titled Dodd-Frank Weighs Heavily on Mass. Whistleblower Case in which she discusses the recent U.S. District Court ruling in Pezza v. Investors Capital Corp. that Section 922(e) of the Dodd-Frank Act applies to pending cases.  Section 922(e) bans pre-dispute agreements in employment contracts that require Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblowers [...]

[Read more →]