SEC and EEOC's Interest in Confidentiality Agreements
In his Employment Issues column, Philip M. Berkowitz writes that notwithstanding their differences in enforcement technique, the SEC Office of the Whistleblower and the EEOC share an interest in assuring that employers not restrain employees and other protected individuals from reporting alleged unlawful activities to either agency.
March 11, 2015 at 09:28 PM
7 minute read
Who would have thought, a decade ago, that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would be a principal nemesis of employment lawyers and their clients, along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor?
In its 2014 report to Congress, the SEC Office of the Whistleblower (OWB) reported that since August 2011, it has received 10,193 whistleblower tips, and that in Fiscal Year 2014 alone, it received 3,620. Indeed, on its website, the OWB conveniently provides a link to a complaint form “TCR” (tip, complaint, referral) for filing whistleblower complaints.
Congress, under Section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act, helpfully established a fund for the OWB, which it may use, among other things, to pay awards in whistleblower actions. There is no similar fund for the EEOC. While that agency can prosecute discriminators, they don't have authority on their own to pay awards to plaintiffs. But the SEC does, and there is plenty of money in this fund—at the end of fiscal year 2014, the balance was nearly a half billion dollars.
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