WASHINGTON, D.C. | February 14, 2024 — On February 8, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the whistleblower retaliation case Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC. The Court found that whistleblowers do not need to prove that employers acted with retaliatory intent in order to be covered under the anti-retaliation provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).
In June, National Whistleblower Center (NWC) filed an amicus curiae brief in the case outlining the Congressional intent behind SOX and arguing that the law’s burden of proof standard does not require whistleblowers to prove retaliatory intent. In their opinion, the Supreme Court Justices seemed to agree with many of the points laid out in NWC’s brief.
“NWC is incredibly proud of the amicus brief we filed and consider this a major win for our work in 2023,” said NWC Executive Director Siri Nelson. “This precedent setting case is a testament to the wide recognition anti-retaliation provisions. We hope to see the same progress as it applies to the right to a reward.”
For decades, NWC has filed amicus briefs before the Supreme Court in precedent-setting whistleblower cases. NWC highlighted the multiple amicus briefs they filed over the course of the past year in their 2023 Annual Report. Furthermore in 2023, Nelson was sworn in as a member of the Supreme Court Bar.
NWC Executive Director Siri Nelson is available for comment. For more information, contact NWC at info@whistleblowers.org.
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NWC is the leading nonprofit working with whistleblowers worldwide to fight corruption and protect people and the environment. For over 30 years, NWC has won policies to protect whistleblowers from retaliation and reward them for helping deliver criminal and civil penalties against wrongdoers.
