The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has sent a strong message to companies and their officers that it is starting to enforce whistleblower protections in its first case under the amended whistleblower protections in the Corporations Act. The commencement of these proceedings was immediately followed by ASIC’s Report 758 Good practices for handling whistleblower disclosures (Report 758) providing guidance on the establishment of strong programs following its review of seven firms.
TerraCom Proceedings
ASIC has commenced proceedings alleging breach of whistleblower protections against an ASX-listed company in the mining sector, TerraCom Limited (TerraCom), claiming it made misleading statements to the market that damaged a whistelblower’s reputation.
ASIC has filed civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court against Terracom, its Managing Director, Chief Commercial Officer, former Chair and former Director and Deputy Chair.
The corporate regulator alleges TerraCom and its directors caused harmed to an employee whistleblower who revealed the alleged falsification of coal quality certificates, by making misleading statements to the market denying the whistleblower’s revelations in two ASX announcements and an open letter to shareholders published in the Australian Financial Review and The Australian. The announcements and open letter denied the whistleblower’s allegations and stated that TerraCom had the allegations independently investigated. In...
The Southeast National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Barr. Ray Nnaji said that widespread claims of a leadership crisis in the party stem from misinterpreting recent court r...