Show posts for: Whistleblowers

  • Talk about your inter-family disputes: one federal agency – the Department of Labor – has filed suit against the United States Postal Service, an independent federal agency (but one of the few explicitly authorized by the Constitution).  The reason for the federal lawsuit, filed in Missouri: the Postal Service’s alleged poor treatment, firing, and alleged harassment of an employee who claims he blew the whistle on safety hazards in a mail facility. 

    Here’s the background, delivered despite any contrary weather: Thomas Purviance worked for the Postal Service for 35 years, most recently as a maintenance supervisor at a mail distribution center near St. Louis.  He had no record of disciplinary or performance issues.  In late December 2009, Purviance complained to his supervisors about what he perceived to be carbon monoxide and fuel oil leaks from some of the equipment at the center, as well as a pile of oil-soaked rags which he thought was a safety hazard.  Getting no response, Purviance eventually called the local fire marshal and made a 911 call to report the carbon monoxide leak.  

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  • The Securities & Exchange Commission gained significant new enforcement powers in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.  Under the Act, the SEC can award bounties to whistleblowers who provide information leading to successful enforcement actions.  It has already exercised this power, making eight whistleblower awards since starting its whistleblower program in late 2011.  The Dodd-Frank Act also allows the SEC to sue an employer who retaliates against a whistleblower, but the SEC hasn’t previously taken that step. 

    Ten days ago, that changed.  The SEC announced that it had charged Paradigm Capital Management and owner Candace King Weir with engaging in prohibited trades and retaliating against a head trader who reported the trades to the SEC, and that Paradigm and Weir had settled the charges for $2.2 million.  Without its new enforcement authority under Dodd-Frank, the SEC wouldn’t have been able to bring the retaliation charge. 

    According to the SEC’s press release, Paradigm “removed [the whistleblower] from his head trader position, tasked him with investigating the very conduct he reported to the SEC, changed his job function from head trader to a full-time compliance assistant, stripped him of his supervisory responsibilities, and otherwise marginalized him.” 

    The formal order issued by the SEC further describes what happened to the whistleblower.  The day after the trader told Paradigm that he had reported these particular trades to the SEC, Paradigm removed him from his position.  The trader and Paradigm tried to negotiate a severance package, but when that fell through, Paradigm brought him back to investigate trades and work on compliance policies – but not to resume his head trading responsibilities. 

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  • While we’re talking about whistleblowers, it’s worth noting that two days ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral argument on appeal from the a federal district court’s opinion in Meng-Lin Liu v. Siemens AG, 978 F.Supp.2d 325 (S.D.N.Y. 2013). This case raises the significant question as to whether the anti-retaliation provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, 15 U.S.C. § 78u-6(h)(1)(a), apply to an employee who is terminated by a non-U.S. corporation that does business in (and is regulated by) the United States.

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  • One recurring topic here at Suits by Suits is the default corporate practice of including mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts; we’ve written frequently about that practice.  Such clauses typically specify that “the parties agree to submit any dispute arising out of this Agreement to binding arbitration.”

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  • In 2010, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, strengthening legal protections for employees who report violations of the securities laws.  However, as we’ve covered here, here, and here, the courts have diverged widely as to whether an employee must report directly to the SEC in order to be shielded from retaliation.

    In Asadi v. GE Energy (USA), LLC, which we addressed in this post, the Fifth Circuit decided that to meet Dodd-Frank’s definition of a “whistleblower” – and to be protected by its anti-retaliation provision – an employee must in fact provide information to the SEC.    However, most of the district courts that have addressed the issue have decided that an employee need not report to the SEC in order to be protected from adverse actions by his or her employer.

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  • On this blog, we frequently cover employment relationships that go wrong.  Sometimes, really wrong.  But only rarely do we cover events that could land someone in the slammer.

    The recent case of Stephen Marty Ward is one of those rare events.  Ward’s case shows that employment relationships gone sour can result in more than hurt feelings and lawsuits – they can result in jail time. 

    As reported by Law360, Ward worked for Corsair Engineering, Inc.  During a three-month project for Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary, he gathered information about a “small tactical unmanned aircraft system” – i.e., a drone – that the Navy was working on.  In particular, Ward had access to a “maintenance manual for an integrator system” that had flown over 500,000 combat flight hours.  Here’s a link to some nifty pics of the “integrator system” from the Insitu website, if you’re curious. 

    When Ward was fired in October 2011, he called a Corsair employee and said that he had a lot of information and wanted a “healthy settlement” to go away quietly.  In a ruse worthy of Hank Schrader and Jesse Pinkman, Corsair executives negotiated a $400,000 settlement with Ward.  Ward came to pick up his down payment of $10,000, and found himself in handcuffs. 

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  • Political Intrigue, Sex, And Money

    | Zuckerman Spaeder Team

    We see – and report on – plenty of whistleblower complaints here at Suits-by-Suits. We’re mostly interested in how those complaints play out legally, and what they can teach us about ways to avoid, or manage, whistleblower disputes and what leads to them.  But outside of the law, some complaints include alleged facts that just tell a compelling story in and of themselves. 

    How about these allegations in Glenn Meeks’ wrongful termination complaint against Chicago State University: Financial mismanagement, a romantic relationship between top university executives, high-level posts filled with unqualified personnel, intrigue on the university’s board of trustees after Meeks complained of these things, and – a bonus, from a storytelling perspective – a suspicion of improper interference by the Governor of Illinois in the whole thing. 

    And another bonus: Meeks filed his complaint in Illinois state court just two weeks after another whistleblower at the same university was awarded $2.5 million 

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  • Top ‘o the mornin’ to ya!  In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we considered writing today’s inbox entirely in Irish-speak.  We could have told you to sit down and wet the tea, or sip on a pint of Gat, while we spun tales of how an executive’s suit put the heart crossways in his employer.  But because we didn’t want anyone feeling the fear tomorrow, we decided to stick with our tried-and-true approach of (somewhat) plain American English.

    • Bonuses on Wall Street are flowing like Guinness, says The Age.  New York’s state comptroller says that firms paid their highest bonuses since 2007, with an average of $164,530.  However, for those looking to get a piece of that pot of gold, the news wasn’t all good: jobs in finance declined.
    • Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post’s Fact Checker put together this interesting piece on Edward Snowden’s claim that federal law did not protect him from whistleblower retaliation.  Kessler concluded by awarding Snowden only one Pinocchio for “some shading of the facts.”  Snowden has many Pinocchios to go if he wants to reach the levels achieved by many illustrious citizens of Washington, D.C.
    • Andrew Burrell of The Australian reports that BHP Billiton’s decision to pay large bonuses has boomeranged on the executives of the resources giant, with shareholders voicing their disapproval (subscription required).  Yes, we included this news solely to use the pun.  No, we do not have a subscription to The Australian.
    • TheTownTalk.com brings us news of a Louisiana College VP’s lawsuit against his employer in state court.  The vice president, Tim Johnson, claims that the Baptist school and its president retaliated against him for blowing the whistle on the president’s diversion of funds.  An outside law firm has already advised the college that the president “misrepresented material information to the Board of Trustees on countless occasions,” but a committee appointed by the board rejected that conclusion.
    • A New York trial judge questioned a hedge fund’s efforts to have a former analyst jailed for stealing trade secrets, reported Stewart Bishop of Law360 (subscription required, and yes, we do have one).  Justice Jeffrey Oing told lawyers for Two Sigma Investments LLC that it might be “going over the top” by pursuing jail time for Kang Gao, who is accused of illegally accessing and copying Two Sigma’s confidential information.
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  • In yesterday's post, we covered the background of Tuesday's Supreme Court decision in Lawson v. FMR, LLC, and took an in-depth look at Justice Ginsburg's majority opinion.  Today, we look at what the other Justices had to say.

    Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, signed on to Justice Ginsburg's opinion in principal part, but also authored his own opinion.  Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas subscribe to the position that a judge, in reading and interpreting a statute, should not examine what Congress said in places other than the statutory language, such as in committee reports and floor speeches.  Based on that judicial philosophy, Justice Scalia criticized Justice Ginsburg for her “occasional excursions beyond the interpretative terra firma of text and context, into the swamps of legislative history.” 

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  • On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued an opinion that may have sweeping implications for whistleblowers and employers.  In Lawson v. FMR LLC, the Court decided that the anti-retaliation provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (18 U.S.C. § 1514A) allows an employee to bring a claim even if that employee works for a private contractor or subcontractor of a public company.  The Court’s decision could lead to a wide range of Sarbanes-Oxley lawsuits by outside counsel, private accountants, cleaning services, and others.

    Lawson was a split decision.  Justice Ginsburg, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Breyer, and Justice Kagan, and by Justices Scalia and Thomas “in principal part,” wrote for the majority.  Justice Scalia wrote a separate concurrence, joined by Justice Thomas.  And in an unusual grouping, Justice Sotomayor authored the dissent, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.  Today, we'll tackle Justice Ginsburg's opinion; tomorrow, we'll take a look at what Justices Scalia and Sotomayor had to say.

    But first, a little background.

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As the regulatory and business environments in which our clients operate grow increasingly complex, we identify and offer perspectives on significant legal developments affecting businesses, organizations, and individuals. Each post aims to address timely issues and trends by evaluating impactful decisions, sharing observations of key enforcement changes, or distilling best practices drawn from experience. InsightZS also features personal interest pieces about the impact of our legal work in our communities and about associate life at Zuckerman Spaeder.

Information provided on InsightZS should not be considered legal advice and expressed views are those of the authors alone. Readers should seek specific legal guidance before acting in any particular circumstance.

Contributing Editors
John J. Connolly

John J. Connolly
Partner
Email | +1 410.949.1149


Man

Andrew N. Goldfarb
Partner
Email | +1 202.778.1822


Sara Alpert Lawson_listing

Sara Alpert Lawson
Partner
Email | +1 410.949.1181


Nicholas DiCarlo

Nicholas M. DiCarlo
Associate
Email | +1 202.778.1835


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