Workforce Bulletin

The Supreme Court has opened up an enormous pool of potential whistleblower claimants against employers who might not otherwise be covered by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”). Reversing the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court has held, in Lawson v. FMR (pdf), that the SOX whistleblower protection provisions set forth in 18 U.S.C. §1514A protect the employees of private companies that contract with public companies that are directly covered by the Act. The decision is consistent with that of the Administrative Review Board in Spinner v. David Landau & ...

By Allen B. Roberts, Douglas Weiner

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts held in Lawson v. FMR LLC (pdf) that SOX coverage can apply not only to employees of publicly traded companies, but to employees of private management services firms as well.

The typical business model in the financial services industry is that public mutual fund companies generally have no employees of their own, but are managed by private investment advisors. The public company’s investment assets are thus managed by employees of a private employer.

Plaintiffs, employees of a private investment advisor to a public mutual fund, alleged they had engaged in activity protected by SOX, for which they suffered retaliation. The employer moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing plaintiffs were not covered by the Section 806 whistleblower protections because they were not employees of a publicly traded company. The defendants noted the very title of the whistleblower section of SOX is “Protection for Employees of Publicly Traded Companies Who Provide Evidence of Fraud.” The plaintiffs countered that Congress intended to extend coverage to private employees in cases such as the plaintiffs.

The Lawson court, the first federal court to decide the issue, agreed with the putative whistleblowers and held that SOX covers employees of private firms providing contract services to the public company.