The US Supreme Court recently listened to oral arguments in the major whistleblower case, Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC. The lawsuit raises the question whether publicly traded companies can discriminate against employees who report wrongdoing within the organization.
The scenario originated when Trevor Murray, who joined the commercial mortgage-backed securities department of UBS in 2011, accused certain senior officials of the firm of unfairly influencing him to falsify his reports. Murray’s eventual dismissal led him to believe that he was being penalized for speaking out about the alleged wrongdoing.
In 2014, he launched a legal action against UBS, accusing the firm of retaliatory termination in breach of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s whistleblower protections. This legislative act aims to protect whistleblowers from retaliation after they expose possible legal violations within publicly traded companies. The main issue before the Supreme Court pertained to who should shoulder the burden of proof – whether the whistleblower has to prove the employer’s “retaliatory intent.”
Murray originally found favor with the federal district court, yet this was overturned by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit at UBS’s behest. Noting the importance of the case and its potential impact on whistleblower protections, the US Supreme Court accepted the appeal.
During the oral proceedings, UBS’ representative, Eugene Scalia, argued that for whistleblowers to establish their case, they need to prove retaliatory intent by employers. In opposition, Murray’s representative, Easha Anand, insisted that Murray only needed to demonstrate that his whistleblowing played a major role in his termination. The responsibility then shifts to UBS to prove that a similar action would’ve been taken regardless of his whistleblowing.
Now with arguments concluded, we await the Supreme Court’s decision, which could possibly reshape not only the trajectory of whistleblower protections but could also influence corporate accountability measures.
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