In recent years, the Department of Labor Administrative Review Board (ARB) has liberally interpreted the whistleblower protections contained in Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). It has continued this trend in Spinner v. David Landau & Associates, ARB Nos. 10-111, 10-115 (May 31, 2012), extending the protections beyond employees of publicly traded companies to employees of their contractors. In short, attorneys, auditors and accountants at private firms who perform work on behalf of publicly traded companies are now also protected from retaliation if they engage in SOX whistleblowing activity.
The decision is significant because it represents a split from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit holding in Lawson v. FMR, 670 F.3d 61 (1st Cir. 2012), which limited the reach of Section 806 to publicly traded companies. Outside of the First Circuit, it will potentially cause a significant number of employees to fall under the umbrella of SOX whistleblower protections, as federal agencies are not bound by decisions from other circuit courts where a case is not reviewable.1
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