John F. Fullerton III, Member of the Firm in the Labor and Employment practice, in the New York office, was quoted in “When Compliance and Audit Executives Blow the Whistle.”
Following is an excerpt:
John Fullerton, a partner with Epstein Becker Green, says the increased focus in recent years on whistleblower issues has raised some thorny issues with respect to retaliation claims that come from compliance and audit professionals. It’s not always clear to employers how to release a compliance or audit professional for reasonable cause without invoking a retaliation claim. “It can be frustrating for a company when a person’s job is to report internally, and then they suffer some kind of adverse employment action,” he says. “The company will say we hired you to report, so we didn’t retaliate against you for reporting. You were fired for some other reason. The law with respect to retaliation protections in auditor functions continues to develop.”
