WASHINGTON (CN) — A man who reported misconduct at his job appeared to convince the Supreme Court on Tuesday that his employer should have to face a million-dollar fine for firing him after he filed a whistleblower complaint.
The justices spent close to two hours parsing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a 2002 law that protects whistleblowers who report corporate misconduct. The law made filing complaints for fraud a protected activity, but a ruling out of the Second Circuit created confusion on what employees would need to do to utilize these protections.
Trevor Murray brought the case before the court. The financial expert was an employee at the global firm UBS Securities until he filed a complaint against the company for reporting his colleagues’ conduct that he claimed was unethical and illegal.
Murray claims that the head of UBS’s commercial mortgage-backed securities trading desk and a lead trader pressured him to skew his independent research reports. Murray’s reports on the markets would be used by UBS’s customers.
Before he reported his colleagues' behavior, Murray received positive feedback from his supervisor. After he reported the attempts to influence his reports, however, Murray was fired.
Murray filed a whistleblower complaint with the Department of Labor in 2012, claiming he was fired in violation of federal law. UBS claims it fired Murray as part of a layoff.
A jury found Murray had proved that his complaints were a factor in his termination, awarding him almost $1...
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