August 18, 2016
Whistleblowers: What Should You Do Now With Your Agreements? (Let’s Call It a Trend)
– Broc Romanek
Here’s news from Scott Kimpel of Hunton & Williams: As described in this press release, the SEC brought yet one more settled administrative case on Monday against a public company – Health Net – based on confidentiality & waiver provisions contained in employee severance agreements – paying a $340k penalty. Like in the BlueLinx action brought last week, the SEC determined that these provisions violated the anti-whistleblower rules it adopted under Dodd-Frank – and again, there is no indication that the company actually sought to enforce the offensive provisions. Here’s the SEC order, which contains excerpts of the impermissible contractual language.
Toni Chion, an Associate Director in the SEC’s Enforcement Division, supervised both cases – which may suggest that the cases are the product of a broader enforcement sweep…