Corporations Continue Assault on Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Reform

Published on February 07, 2011

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Corporations Continue Assault on Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Reform
Washington, D.C.  February 7, 2011. On Friday February 4th, the National Whistleblower Center filed a 120-page rulemaking comment with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), rebutting the main concerns raised by corporate lobby groups. The corporate campaign to undercut whistleblower reforms in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law continued to escalate as leading corporate lobby groups, including the Financial Services Roundtable, the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Chamber of Commerce, formally petitioned the CFTC to implement rules that would severely restrict the scope of whistleblower protections mandated by the new corporate whistleblower laws.

All three groups strongly advocated that the CFTC institute unprecedented restrictions on the right of employees to contact government agencies and report wrongdoing.  For example, the Roundtable demanded that the CFTC “require” whistleblowers to use “employer sponsored” “reporting procedures” and also asked the Commission to implement rules that would permit companies to “sanction” whistleblowers whose reports to law enforcement agencies caused “harm to the company.”

“These restrictions are unprecedented under whistleblower law, and would cripple the key anti-corruption protections afforded under the Dodd Frank Act,” said Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center.

The NWC report cited to statistics published by the Association of Certified Fraud Auditors, the Ethics Resource Center and the Department of Justice that demonstrated the importance of fully protecting whistleblowers.

“In today’s work place the main problem is that employees are afraid to report wrongdoing.  Rules are needed not to scare employees from blowing the whistle or restrict their right to contact federal law enforcement, rules are needed to stop the ‘culture of silence’ that almost ruined the American economy, cost millions of jobs and crippled the housing markets,” added Kohn.

Links:

NWC Report to the CFTC on proposed whistleblower rules

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