WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court endorsed a million-dollar fine stemming from a whistleblower complaint on Thursday, ruling in favor of added protections for employees who report misconduct.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act made filing whistleblower complaints a protected activity. How employees use those protections, however, was up for debate before the justices.
In a unanimous opinion, the high court determined that a whistleblower who invokes such protections must prove his protected activity was a contributing factor in the employer’s action against him, but need not prove that his employer acted with “retaliatory intent.”
Trevor Murray was working as a financial expert at UBS Securities when he was fired for reporting misconduct. Murray says he was pressured to change his independent research reports to benefit UBS’s commercial mortgage-backed securities trading desk. Murray’s reports were used by UBS customers.
Before he reported his colleagues for pushing him to change reports, Murray says, his supervisor gave him positive feedback. Then Murray filed a whistleblower complaint with the Department of Labor in 2012 and he was fired.
The report claimed UBS violated federal law by firing him. UBS said Murray was terminated in a layoff.
A jury awarded Murray almost $1 million in damages, finding UBS didn't prove Murray would have been fired regardless of his complaint. The Second Circuit reversed the decision, ruling that Murray did not provide enough evidence that his...
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) will pay more than $17 million to settle allegations it violated federal anti-discrimination rules tied to government contracts, the U.S. Department of ...