A federal judge has dismissed a legal challenge filed by a whistleblower, ruling that the anti-retaliation provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act do not extend to employees outside the United States, marking a rare victory for companies that face such claims.

The decision stems from a case brought in January 2013 by Meng-Lin Liu, former group chief compliance officer for the healthcare division of a Chinese subsidiary of Siemens, over allegations that he was wrongfully terminated in 2010 after he raised concerns about potential violations of the company's anti-graft internal controls.

Liu further raised concerns about a deal in North Korea that he believed also circumvented internal compliance procedures put into place after Siemen's 2008 guilty plea with the Department of Justice over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Liu alleged that his termination was in violation of the anti-retaliation provisions under the Dodd-Frank Act.

In its defense, Siemens argued in its motion to dismiss that the anti-retaliation provisions under Dodd-Frank don't extend to employees abroad. Liu also wasn't entitled to protection under Dodd-Frank, they argued, because he initially reported his concerns internally, rather than first to the Securities and Exchange Commission; it wasn't until 2011 that Liu reported any potential wrongdoing to the SEC.

In an opinion issued Oct. 21, Judge William Pauley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted Siemens motion to dismiss. “There's simply no indication that Congress intended the anti-retaliation provision to apply extraterritorially,” Pauley wrote in his opinion.

Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the opinion reiterated that “when a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none.”

Pauley's decision refrained from addressing the question of whether Liu's decision to not report the alleged wrongdoing to the SEC first made him ineligible for the anti-retaliation protections. “Given the other deficiencies in Liu's complaint there is no need for this court to wade into this debate,” Pauley wrote.

Lawyers for Siemens declined to comment.