Gregory (Greg) Keating, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Boston office, was quoted in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, in “1st Circuit: FCPA Report Not Protected Activity,” by Kris Olson. (Read the full version – subscription required.)

Following is an excerpt:

Because an employee who reported an alleged violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was not engaging in protected activity, his employer should have been granted summary judgment on a whistleblower retaliation claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has determined. …

Boston attorney Gregory C. Keating called Baker an “important development” simply because there had not previously been much jurisprudence on the SOX retaliation protection provisions.

Moreover, employers will see Baker as “welcome news,” as the 1st Circuit, while not the most generous circuit for employees’ rights, is not particularly employer friendly, either, he said. …

While employers can take some comfort in the court’s narrow construction of the whistleblower protection provision at issue, they should not take the decision to mean that no future case with similar facts will ever rise to the level of protected activity, Keating added.

“Employers should take heed that the case does not stand for the proposition that any federal statute that could relate to fraud is no longer fair game when it comes to protected activity,” he said.

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