On February 8, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC, a Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) whistleblower case with widespread implications for the ability of whistleblowers to seek anti-retaliation protections under federal whistleblower laws.
The Supreme Court ruled that whistleblowers do not need to prove retaliatory intent in order to be protected under SOX.
“This is a major win for whistleblowers and thus a huge win for corporate accountability,” said leading whistleblower attorney David Colapinto, a founding partner of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto (KKC).
“A ruling in favor of UBS would have overturned more than 20 years of precedent in SOX whistleblower cases and made it exceedingly more difficult for whistleblowers who claim retaliation under many similarly worded federal whistleblower statutes,” Colapinto continued.
The case was filed by an ex-employee against UBS Bank. Trevor Murray alleges that he was fired from his role as a bond strategist at UBS because he refused to publish misleading research reports and complained about being pressured to do so. SOX prohibits employers from retaliating against employees because the worker reported financial wrongdoing.
However, in 2022, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Murray, saying he did not prove that UBS intended to retaliate against him by firing him. In contrast, other federal appeals courts have ruled that whistleblowers only need to prove that their whistleblowing was...
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