By Porter Wright on High ranking officials in the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on March 12 that companies that fail to self-report overseas bribes will face tougher Foreign Criminal Practices Act (FCPA) fines. While speaking at the Georgetown Law Center Corporate Counsel Institute in Washington, Patrick Stokes, deputy chief of the DOJ’s FCPA … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on In the first major public comment about white collar crime in more than a year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) called for an increase in compensation for whistleblowers under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA). Senior DOJ officials, in three separate speeches, appealed to whistleblowers to come forward with information about crimes … Continue Reading
By Bob Tannous on In the ever-changing world of corporate law, it’s important to have trusted resources that can keep an eye out for how the relentless evolution of regulation and legislation can affect business operations, governance, strategy and growth. Our goal is for the Federal Securities Law Blog, and the Porter Wright attorneys who contribute to it, to … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court decided earlier this week that whistleblower protection under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 includes employees of a public company’s private contractors and subcontractors. In Lawson v. FMR LLC, the court, in a majority opinion written by Justice Ginsburg, concluded that extending protection to employees of a contractor … Continue Reading
By Bob Tannous on On August 21, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced that it has paid out the first award under its whistleblower award program, which was established under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act a little more than a year ago. The SEC established the whistleblower program to allow it to award between 10% and 30% of … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on An article by Scott Patterson and Jenny Strasburg in the Wall Street Journal today revealed that, during an investigation of Pipeline Trading Systems LLC, an SEC attorney showed a witness a notebook which included handwritten notes from a whistleblower, and the witness recognized the handwriting and was able to tell his employers who the whistleblower … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on In a February 3, 2012 Opinion, the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a Massachusetts federal court decision and held that, while the whistleblower protections of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act apply to employees of "public companies" (i.e., a company with registered securities or one that files reports under Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act), they do … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on Today, the Federal Securities Litigation Blog continues its with its larger-than-usual blog entry examining the Top 10 securities litigation stories that were the most intriguing in 2011. As mentioned yesterday, like any sort of Top 10 list, not everyone will agree. Other bloggers will have their own lists with different stories. But on a personal … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on The SEC’s Office of Whistleblower has released its first Annual Report on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program for Fiscal Year 2011. The Report (available here) points out that because the Final Rules became effective August 12, 2011 (discussed here), there were only seven weeks of whistleblower tip data available for fiscal year 2011. The Report includes an … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on Sean McKessey, the Chief of the Office of the Whistleblower at the SEC, spoke at a panel discussion regarding the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on Tuesday morning. Mr. McKessey commented on the efforts of his office to date and responded to questions regarding a number of issues.… Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on Two recent posting in the blogosphere discuss the long-threatened Congressional efforts to roll back the impact of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. First, a post from Jim Hamilton’s World of Securities Litigation discusses Congressional efforts to repeal specific regulations and pass fundamental and structural reform of the federal rulemaking system. Second, … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has adopted its Final Rules to implement a whistleblower program mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act. The CFTC stated that it sought to harmonize its rules with those recently adopted by the SEC.… Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on The SEC announced that its Whistleblower Rules, adopted on May 25, 2011 became effective today and the Commission launched its new web page (here) for that particular office. In addition, in his first speech since being appointed as Chief of the Office of the Whistleblower, Sean McKessey addressed some misunderstanding about certain hotly debated issues … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on At an open meeting on Wednesday morning, the SEC adopted final rules to implement Section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act regarding securities whistleblower incentives and protection. One of the significant highlights of the final rules is that the Commission has sought to struck a compromise between the importance of the corporation’s compliance programs on the … Continue Reading
