Whistleblowing & Compliance Law Blog : Whistleblowing Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Epstein Becker & Green Law Firm : Employment Retaliation, Compliance Counsel

By Allen B. Roberts and Stuart M. Gerson

Those concerned with managing or insuring risk are affected increasingly by the evolution of whistleblowing, especially as new laws and interpretations since 2009 have changed the stakes by redefining whistleblower protections and bounty award entitlements.

Virtually any risk management program written prior to the 2008 elections may need to be recalibrated to take account of new definitions introduced by whistleblower features of legislation nominally concerning healthcare and financial services, but in reality reaching much more broadly beyond the bounds of the industries ostensibly targeted. The subject matter of protected activity, the appropriate manner for an informant or tipster to communicate, the remedies for employment-related reprisals, and the opportunity to share in sanctions imposed by the government are part of laws enacted in the past two years that introduce entirely new rights and obligations or importantly amend existing ones.

Wholly apart from legislative initiatives, interpretations issued on the watch of a newly constituted Department of Labor Administrative Review Board could have the effect of reinventing Sarbanes-Oxley protected activity – if decisions issued particularly during 2011 are enforced and followed. In recent administrative decisions, the predicate that Sarbanes-Oxley’s whistleblower protections are reserved for exceptional matters of material shareholder or securities fraud no longer holds, and the underlying focus of Sarbanes-Oxley as a post-Enron statute intended to protect the presumed “innocent investor” is disregarded. Equating reports of mail, wire and bank fraud with shareholder and securities fraud, the current Administrative Review Board has downplayed the legislative concern for activities that materially impact shareholders or securities markets and related protection of individuals who assist with valuable information. The consequence for now is that more companies are exposed to claims by individuals asserting that even garden variety reports in the course of performing their duties or otherwise should be within the ambit of Sarbanes-Oxley protection against unfavorable personnel actions.

For more information, see “Whistleblowers: A Risk Management View,” (pdf) an article by Allen B. Roberts and Stuart M. Gerson featured in the August 22, 2011 issue of Insurance Advocate. © 2011 CINN Worldwide, Inc. All rights reserved. Originally published by CINN Worldwide, Inc. in the Vol. 122, No. 14 edition of Insurance Advocate.
 

Allen B. Roberts and Stuart Gerson  are co-authors of the recent Law360 article Examining The Purpose Of Sarbanes-Oxley. This summary of recent Administrative Review Board actions explains the shift in the standards whistleblowers must meet, and how employers should prepare for this new era of litigation.

By: Allen B. Roberts, Stuart M. Gerson and Daniel J. Schuch

In a case packed with allegations of the kind rarely found beyond the script of a soap opera, the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") Administrative Review Board ("ARB") determined that protected activity under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ("SOX") does not require a showing of fraud against shareholders. Rather, per the ARB, it is sufficient that an employee reasonably believes conventional mail or wire fraud has occurred. The holding in Brown v. Lockheed Martin Corp. (pdf) evidences the ARB's adherence to a literal, and clinical, construction of SOX – and serves as a clear indication of the ARB's willingness to reach beyond the underlying objectives envisioned by Congress in the wake of the infamous collapse of Enron and WorldCom. If upheld and followed, Brown effectively expands SOX whistleblower protections well beyond the intended beneficiary of the law – the "innocent investor."

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An in-house patent attorney who protested that his employer knowingly assigned a $50 million value to acquire patents alleged to be worthless could not link his discharge to whistleblower activity protected by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Affirming dismissal in Vodopia v. Koninklijke Philips Electronics, N.V., et al., the Second Circuit Court of Appeals observed that: (1) the complaint clearly centered on the plaintiff’s concern that the patents were invalid, not on the value the company assigned to them; and (2) the complaint did not allege that the $50 million value assigned to those patents was ever reported to the public or to shareholders.

Sarbanes-Oxley Section 806 makes it unlawful for an employer to take an unfavorable personnel action by discharging, or in any other manner discriminating against, an employee in the terms or conditions of employment because of any lawful act done by the employee to provide information or otherwise assist in an investigation regarding any conduct which the employee reasonably believes constitutes a violation of certain enumerated federal laws. 

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[Ed. Note: We thank our colleague Richard D. Tuschman for this post, which was originally published on EBG’s Florida Employment & Immigration Law Blog]

An employee claiming Whistleblower protection under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act must have actually believed that his company’s conduct was illegal in order to state a claim under the Act, according to a recent decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Gale v. U.S. Department of Labor, Case No. 08-14232 11th Cir. June 25, 2010) (pdf).

The case arose when Michael Gale was terminated from his employment at World Financial Group (“WFG”). Gale filed a Whistleblower complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which enforces the SOX Whistleblower provisions. Gale alleged that he was terminated because he opposed decisions made by company officers relating to waste and misuse of corporate funds, and because he raised concerns regarding the alleged violation of SEC rules and regulations.

Under SOX, a publicly traded company and its officers are prohibited from discharging an employee for providing information to a supervisory authority about conduct that the employee “reasonably believes” constitutes a violation of federal laws against mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud, any SEC rule or regulation, or any provision of federal law relating to fraud against shareholders. 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(a)(1). 

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On the heels of its 2-1 decision in Hyman v. KD Resources, allowing equitable estoppel to extend the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) statute of limitations (noted in our blog posting of April 20, 2010), the Department of Labor Administrative Review Board (ARB) has issued a unanimous decision clarifying the burden for whistleblowers to survive dismissal of complaints that are not filed within the explicit 90-day statute of limitations. Daryanani v. Royal & Sun Alliance, ARB No. 08-106, ALJ No. 2007-SOX-79 (ARB May 27, 2010).

Adhering to the principle that equitable estoppel may apply when certain employer conduct interferes with a whistleblower-employee’s exercise of rights, the ARB nevertheless refused to extend the SOX statute of limitations on the basis of alleged inaction by an employer. Holding equitable estoppel would not be available in the circumstances, the ARB observed that the employer had no affirmative obligation to:

• inform the employee of potential causes of action,
• inform the employee of time limitations applicable under statutes creating a cause of action, or
• counter-sign a severance release agreement within the statute of limitations deadline.

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By Allen B. Roberts, Douglas Weiner

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts held in Lawson v. FMR LLC (pdf) that SOX coverage can apply not only to employees of publicly traded companies, but to employees of private management services firms as well. 

The typical business model in the financial services industry is that public mutual fund companies generally have no employees of their own, but are managed by private investment advisors. The public company’s investment assets are thus managed by employees of a private employer. 

Plaintiffs, employees of a private investment advisor to a public mutual fund, alleged they had engaged in activity protected by SOX, for which they suffered retaliation. The employer moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing plaintiffs were not covered by the Section 806 whistleblower protections because they were not employees of a publicly traded company. The defendants noted the very title of the whistleblower section of SOX is “Protection for Employees of Publicly Traded Companies Who Provide Evidence of Fraud.” The plaintiffs countered that Congress intended to extend coverage to private employees in cases such as the plaintiffs.

The Lawson court, the first federal court to decide the issue, agreed with the putative whistleblowers and held that SOX covers employees of private firms providing contract services to the public company.

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Like several other statutes, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) requires whistleblowers to initiate their complaints by an administrative filing with the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But when a preferred outcome in that designated arena appears unlikely, a whistleblower may be allowed to abandon the administrative process before a final order issues and seek a new opportunity in court.  Faced with the prospect of another round of de novo litigation, employers may turn increasingly to pre-dispute arbitration agreements as an alternative to litigating in court.

As exemplified by Stone v. Instrumentation Laboratory Co.(4th Cir. 2009) (pdf), filing an administrative complaint and participating in the administrative process, as required by SOX, do not foreclose access to a federal court before the issuance of a final administrative order. The court explained that the preclusion doctrine, intended to avoid duplicative litigation, does not bar de novo consideration by a federal district court if a lawsuit is filed at least 180 days after the administrative filing and before the Department of Labor has issued a final decision, even where administrative proceedings have progressed to Administrative Review Board consideration of an administrative law judge’s dismissal of a complaint. 

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By: Allen B. Roberts, Victoria M. Sloan

Employers who thought they were free of exposure if no complaint was filed within the statute of limitations applicable in Sarbanes-Oxley ("SOX") and other whistleblower claims administered by the Secretary of Labor need to recalibrate their risk based on a recent decision allowing equitable estoppel.

In Hyman v. KD Resources, an employee missed the 90-day SOX statute of limitations by filing his complaint 160 days after he was discharged. Two newly appointed members of the Administrative Review Board (“ARB”) allowed the complaint to survive and remanded it to the Administrative Law Judge who had dismissed it as untimely.

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