The court in Wussow v. Bruker Corp., decided on June 28, 2017, ruled that whistleblower claims brought under the Dodd-Frank Act are subject to mandatory arbitration. 

In April, a Los Angeles County jury awarded $22.4 million in punitive damages (that was later reduced to $2.27 million) along with $2.7 million in lost past and future wages to Steven Babyak in a whistleblower retaliation and wrongful termination case against Cardiovascular Systems, Inc (CSI). Babyak, a former sales manager for the company, argued that he was retaliated against, culminating in termination, after making complaints about a hostile work environment and violations of the Anti-Kickback Act and securities laws under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The

On June 7, 2017, a jury decided in favor of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. after an 8 day trial to determine whether Jason Blasdell had been wrongfully terminated in violation of public policy. Blasdell claimed he was fired after raising concerns about SpaceX’s compliance with 18 U.S.C. Section 38, a federal statute prohibiting fraud against a customer involving aircraft or space vehicle parts. The former Avionics Test Technician working on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft alleged that he had been wrongfully terminated after voicing concerns about the falsification of test results following safety testing and misrepresentations in connection with SpaceX’s multi-billion dollar contracts with customers including NASA. Specifically, Blasdell claimed that managers told him to sign off on parts quality regardless of whether he could verify their compliance with protocol. Blasdell claims he voiced his concerns to management, as far up as SpaceX President Gwen Shotwell and CEO Elon Musk. 

Attorney Clayton Wire has recently published a blog post on WhistleblowerBlawg.com regarding the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in Digital Realty v. Somers, to resolve a circuit split over whether a whistleblower must first report to the SEC before being entitled to protection under the Dodd-Frank Act’s anti-retaliation provision. Click here to read the full post. 

On May 22, 2017, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) adopted amendments to its whistleblower rules, continuing its three-year effort to strengthen the commission’s whistleblower program and its ability to protect whistleblowers from employer retaliation. The amendments expand the commission’s ability to pursue retaliation claims on behalf of whistleblowers and prohibit confidentiality agreements that interfere with whistleblowers’ communications with the CFTC.

The False Claims Act contains a newly broadened anti-retaliation provision that protects whistleblowers who take actions in furtherance of a Qui Tam action, or in an attempt to stop one or more violations of the False Claims Act. This essentially means that employees and others are protected when they collect information in preparation for a Qui Tam lawsuit as a relator, and when they internally blow-the-whistle on what they reasonably believe to be violations of the FCA. Importantly, courts have clarified that generally whistleblowers need not be correct in their reasonable belief, in order to be protected from retaliation.

After only three hours of deliberation, a federal jury in San Francisco determined that Bio- Rad, a life science company, retaliated against its former General Counsel, Sanford Wadler, for reporting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Wadler alleged he was fired for reporting possible FCPA violations after he found documents showing Bio-Rad’s distribution of free products in China. Wadler was fired from the company in June 2013.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has ordered Wells Fargo to reinstate and compensate an unnamed, former bank manager who was retaliated against and terminated in 2010 after reporting suspected fraudulent behavior to his superiors as well as through a bank ethics hotline. The whistleblower reported separate incidents of suspected bank, mail, and wire fraud by bankers under his supervision in relation to Wells Fargo’s illegal sales practices going back as far as 2005. As many as 2 million checking and credit card accounts were opened under customers’ names without their permission, a violation for which Wells Fargo paid $185 million as a settlement in September 2016.