Following a $6 million payout to a whistle-blowing former Playboy employee, HR execs are being urged to get up to date with recent changes to SOX laws.
Since the establishment of America’s first National Whistleblower Appreciation Day in July 30, 2013, the courts have increasingly stood on the side of employees in whistleblower cases. The implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have changed significantly in the past few months alone. It hasn’t even been two years since the implementation of Dodd-Frank changes to protect employee whistleblowers of public companies, but changes are already happening fast. Keep up:
1. Employees of privately contracted companies are protected (Lawson v. FMR LLC)
Recently, employers have been shaken by a March 4 ruling that SOX whistleblower protections also apply to private contractors of public companies. The decision was a 6-3 ruling with an intriguing argument from the dissenting Judge, Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “As interpreted today, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act authorizes a babysitter to bring a federal case against his employer, a parent who happens to work at the local Walmart, a public company, if the parent stops employing the babysitter after he expresses concern that the parent’s teenage son may have participated in an Internet purchase fraud,” she wrote.
2. Protections do not generally extend to foreign laws (Villanueva v. United States Department of Labor)
This February case established that in general, the law does not protect whistleblowers for reporting contraventions of foreign law, especially if the individual involved is not a US citizen.
3. Whistleblower awards are bigger than ever (Zulfer v. Playboy Enterprises Inc. et al.)
A California jury awarded a former Playboy executive a whopping $6million on March 5, setting a record for the largest verdict under Section 806 of SOX. Whistleblower legal specialists at Proskauer predicted a spike in retaliation claims now that the precedent for million-dollar awards has been set.
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1. Employees of privately contracted companies are protected (Lawson v. FMR LLC)
Recently, employers have been shaken by a March 4 ruling that SOX whistleblower protections also apply to private contractors of public companies. The decision was a 6-3 ruling with an intriguing argument from the dissenting Judge, Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “As interpreted today, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act authorizes a babysitter to bring a federal case against his employer, a parent who happens to work at the local Walmart, a public company, if the parent stops employing the babysitter after he expresses concern that the parent’s teenage son may have participated in an Internet purchase fraud,” she wrote.
2. Protections do not generally extend to foreign laws (Villanueva v. United States Department of Labor)
This February case established that in general, the law does not protect whistleblowers for reporting contraventions of foreign law, especially if the individual involved is not a US citizen.
3. Whistleblower awards are bigger than ever (Zulfer v. Playboy Enterprises Inc. et al.)
A California jury awarded a former Playboy executive a whopping $6million on March 5, setting a record for the largest verdict under Section 806 of SOX. Whistleblower legal specialists at Proskauer predicted a spike in retaliation claims now that the precedent for million-dollar awards has been set.
You might also like:
OSHA wants to make your injury records public
Can you fire a whistleblower?
Stolen trade secrets land ex-Korn/Ferry recruiter in prison