whistleblower protection

While the most common type of whistleblower may be a disgruntled employee, others can be whistleblowers, too. And as a recent SEC enforcement action highlights, interfering with these others’ attempts to communicate with the SEC can violate the agency’s whistleblower protection rules. In an amended complaint filed on November 4, 2019 in a pending SEC enforcement action, the agency alleges that the defendant company and one of its principals violated the SEC’s whistleblower rules by requiring the company’s investors to enter agreements in which the investors agreed not to contact the SEC or other regulatory enforcement authorities. The SEC alleges that these actions violated the agency’s whistleblower rules. A copy of the SEC’s November 4, 2019 press release about the amended complaint can be found here.  
Continue Reading SEC’s Whistleblower Protections Extend Beyond Just Employees

Frank Hülsberg
Burkhard Fassbach

In the following guest post, Frank Hülsberg, a Partner for Governance, Risk, Compliance & Technology at Warth & Klein Grant Thornton AG in Düsseldorf, and Burkhard Fassbach, a D&O-lawyer in private practice in Germany, take a look at the EU’s new Whistleblower Directive. I would like to thank Frank and Burkhard for allowing me to publish their article. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Frank and Burkhard’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: The European Union Whistleblower Directive: Overdue Protective Shield

gavelWithin the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower provisions, Congress included some stiff anti-retaliation protections. Since the Act’s passage, however, the lower federal courts have struggled to try to determine whether the anti-retaliation protections apply only to whistleblowers who file reports with the SEC or whether or not the protections extend to individuals who file internal whistleblower reports within their own companies. A split on this issue has developed within the federal circuit courts and now the United States Supreme Court may have the opportunity to address the question.
Continue Reading Which Whistleblowers Can Claim Dodd-Frank Act Anti-Retaliation Protection?