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

In the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), Congress has crafted an array of bounty awards and whistleblower protections broadly affecting securities, commodities and futures, and consumer financial products firms and those associated with them. Although there was an opportunity to create incentives promoting internal reporting in aid of corporate compliance programs and to rationalize whistleblowing with standardized definitions, procedures and remedies, Congress went in different directions. The result is a set of whistleblower inducements that may frustrate attainment of corporate compliance objectives by driving whistleblowers outside the organization and an enigmatic patchwork of whistleblower protections laden with internal variations that must be mastered.

Into the mix of entirely new extensions of coverage by way of bounty awards and whistleblower protections, Dodd-Frank adds provisions mandating whistleblowing for nationally recognized statistical rating organizations. It also adds significant changes enabling whistleblowers to fare better under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the False Claims Act.

Allen B. Roberts explores the provisions and variations existing within Dodd-Frank that present compliance challenges, and a trigger for affected firms to revisit compliance policies, practices and procedures, in The Sounds of New Whistleblower Awards and Protections under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (pdf), originally published by Bloomberg Finance L.P. (reprinted with permission).

This blog is dedicated to the many facets of whistleblowing and the tensions and contradictions that inhere in defining compliance objectives and the permissible means by which they will be attained and preserved. At its core, whistleblowing should be about corporate compliance and the common institutional and individual purpose of assuring that internal and external standards of conduct are respected. Reality may draw a another picture, perceived differently from the perspective of the individual and the institution – and by public opinion, media comment, markets, administrative, regulatory, enforcement or legislative bodies or by courts and juries.

Is the whistleblower a selfless altruist properly advancing compliance objectives or an individual bent on undeserved personal advantage by way of protection or windfall gain?

With this blog, we launch a dialogue, intending that it serve as a prism allowing light to be appreciated for its clarity and nuances, refraction and reflections. We will endeavor to protect against its becoming distorted, blinding or scorching.

Our lead posting draws initial baselines, more for placement of pieces that can be moved, enlarged, contracted and replaced than to prescribe or confine. We expect exploration to commence from there, perhaps with a deliberate return home from time to time for comfort and refreshment.

We look forward to the opportunity of sharing observations and experiences as we look at the emerging principles of whistleblowing and anticipate its changing contours.

For a review of recent developments in whistleblowing law, see Allen B. Roberts, Continuing Prominence Seen for Whistleblowers, as appeared in The New York Law Journal.