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On February 8, 2024, in its Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that a whistleblower pursuing a claim for retaliation under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”) does not need to show that the employer acted with “retaliatory intent.”

On January 10, 2024, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (“SDNY”) introduced the SDNY Whistleblower Pilot Program (“Pilot Program”), aimed at encouraging individuals to disclose information about specific criminal offenses, particularly urging them to do so early and voluntarily. In return for their cooperation, SDNY will enter into a non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) if certain conditions are met.

On May 5, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued an order (the “Order”)¹ providing that it would pay a $279 million award to a whistleblower who assisted with the enforcement of an action by the SEC and two other related actions brought by unnamed agencies.

On February 3, 2023, the SEC announced that Activision Blizzard Inc. — the publicly traded video game developer and publisher of such well-known videogames as “Candy Crush” and “World of Warcraft” — “agreed to pay $35 million to settle charges that it failed to maintain disclosure controls and procedures to ensure that the company could assess whether its disclosures pertaining to its workforce were adequate” and “violated an SEC whistleblower protection rule” by impeding employees “from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation.”

As someone who has tried more than his share of cases, I have come to the conclusion that retaliation claims are often more difficult to defend than plain discrimination claims.