Ruling extends Sarbox whistleblowers protection
Landmark court ruling extends Sarbox protection to whistleblowers beyond US shores
Employees of US-listed companies who blow the whistle on fraud that take
place in the US can be protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley law even if they are
based beyond US shores, according to a landmark court ruling.
The decision, involving consultancy
Accenture,
overturns years of refusal by US courts to allow the extra-territorial
application of Sarbox’s whistleblower protection laws, the Financial
Times reports.
But this week, a judge in New York found that Rosemary O’Mahoney, a
Paris-based Accenture employee who claimed Accenture had carried out tax fraud,
could be protected because measures allegedly taken against her by the company
were orchestrated in the US.
Judge Victor Marrero, of the
US district
court, southern district, said that, because the ‘alleged wrongful conduct
and other material acts occurred in the United States…the exercise of
jurisdiction by this court to resolve the dispute before it would not implicate
the extraterritorial application of American law’.
Further reading:
SEC calls for delay to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
Read
story in the Financial Times
