In brief

• Federal judge granted summary judgment to employer in SOX whistleblower retaliation case.
• Former executive claimed he was fired after raising concerns about misleading “real-time” product claims.
• Court found exec reasonably believed shareholders could be misled but failed to show employer knew he was engaging in protected whistleblower activity.
• Attorneys say ruling clarifies notice requirements for Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower claims.

An executive at a publicly traded tech company who claims he was terminated for expressing concern that his company planned to make misleading statements about a product launch could not bring a whistleblower retaliation claim under the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled.

Defendant Salesforce, Inc., a maker of customer relationship management software, planned to announce at its 2022 “Dreamforce” conference that it had created a customer data platform that automatically updated in “real time.”

On Sept. 7, 2022, plaintiff Karl Wirth, the company’s senior vice president of product management, apparently expressed concern internally that the announcement would be made despite the product being months away from “real-time” capability.

Wirth, who was terminated two days later, claims he believed at the time that such an announcement would mislead shareholders.

Salesforce argued in a motion for summary judgment that Wirth could not sustain a whistleblower claim under Sarbanes-Oxley, which Congress enacted...

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