The federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed changes to its regulations implementing the agency’s whistleblower anti-retaliation and bounty hunter program under the ten-year-old Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The agency is proposing to make changes necessary to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent 9-0 ruling in Digital Realty Trust v. Somers, which held that the SEC had gone too far in interpreting the scope of Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower retaliation protection coverage.
In addition to the proposed conforming changes, the SEC is also proposing useful clarifications, both to the anti-retaliation provisions as well as the bounty hunter rules and procedures, that should help covered entities better understand their compliance obligations.
Comments are due by September 18, 2018. The proposed regulations, published in the Federal Register on July 20, 2018, are available here.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.