Over the years, the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken aim at common language in settlement and severance agreements regarding nondisclosure and confidentiality. It has been relatively commonplace for such agreements to include language that requires, for example, the settling or departing employee to agree not to disclose the employer’s confidential information or trade secrets
Fiscal Year 2021 was a record year for the Whistleblower Program (the “Program”) of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC” or the “Commission”). The Commission released its 2021 Annual Report to Congress (the “Report”) last Monday and it reflects substantial increases in many different metrics. The Program has already awarded more than $1.1
The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 provides that defendants convicted of crimes committed by “fraud or deceit” must compensate victims for the full amount of their losses. A question that courts often face is whether the government and victim have provided sufficient evidence of their actual losses to obtain restitution under the MVRA. The
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently settled its first administrative proceeding and enforcement action under the Dodd-Frank Act involving an employer’s use of a form confidentiality agreement. The SEC found the agreement, which prohibited employees from discussing aspects of internal investigations without prior law department authorization, could interfere with the employee’s ability to communicate with
Overturning the criminal convictions of former Diamondback Capital Management, LLC portfolio manager, Todd Newman, and former Level Global Investors, L.P. portfolio manager, Anthony Chiasson, for insider trading, the federal appeals court in New York has held the government “failed to present sufficient evidence that the defendants willfully engaged in substantive insider trading or a conspiracy
Whether a claimant qualifies as a whistleblower under the language of the Dodd-Frank Act when he does not complain directly to the SEC is the question the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis may attempt to answer.
Securities clearing and settlement firm COR Clearing LLC has appealed a Nebraska District Court’s denial of
In a securities filing on May 1, 2014, it was announced that Avon Products, Inc. had reached a $135 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice. The $135 million in fines will be paid to the SEC and the DOJ by Avon to resolve violations under the Foreign
In the wake of recent SEC pronouncements about huge numbers of whistleblower complaints in the pipeline, one of the most hotly contested issues under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act “Dodd Frank Act”) has been the question of whether the Dodd Frank Act’s whistleblower anti-retaliation provision protects only those individuals who report
On October 1, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that an unidentified whistleblower, “who voluntarily provided original information” to the SEC “that led to the successful enforcement” action against an undisclosed company, has been awarded a record $14 million. According to the SEC, the award “recognizes the significance of the information that the Claimant provided to the Commission, the assistance the Claimant provided in the Commission action, and the law enforcement interest in deterring violations by granting awards.”
This is the third such award the SEC has made under the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (DFA) since the statute’s passage in 2010. The others were in the amounts of $50,000 and a little more than $25,000.
The latest record award is no surprise to employers and their lawyers who have been monitoring the SEC’s actions under the DFA’s “bounty” provisions.
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