- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2024-02-12T21:35:00
The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision Thursday to reaffirm whistleblower protections under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in a case involving UBS has wide ramifications in many other industries beyond financial services, legal experts told Compliance Week.
The case, Murray v. UBS Securities, saw the court rule whistleblowers don’t have to prove they were terminated because of “retaliatory intent”—a precedent that broadly impacts corporate internal reporting cases in favor of whistleblowers.
“This ruling goes way beyond SOX,” said Gordon Schnell, partner with whistleblower law firm Constantine Cannon. The court’s decision referenced other whistleblower protection laws besides SOX, he said, including laws covering whistleblowing by civil servants and employees in the aviation, food, pharmaceuticals, auto safety, consumer product, and energy industries.
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Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Department of Justice will look to fill gaps in its whistleblower procedures with the launch of a 90-day sprint toward a DOJ-led pilot whistleblower reward program.
The Supreme Court reaffirmed whistleblower protections guaranteed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in a unanimous decision expected to set a precedent that impacts all corporate internal reporting cases.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York took its efforts to encourage voluntary self-disclosure a step further with the launch of a whistleblower pilot program for individuals involved in nonviolent offenses.
Two pairs of claimants will receive whistleblower awards totaling more than $98 million and $24 million, respectively, for information they provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission that led to an enforcement action.
Discrimination against whistleblowers in the U.K. has risen to such a level that the government may need to actively pursue plans to afford greater legal protection, as well as introduce financial awards to compensate for their “career suicide.”
The Department of Justice released the details of its long-awaited corporate whistleblower awards pilot program that will prioritize reporting in areas of corporate crime not currently covered by existing whistleblower programs.
