WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The overwhelming majority of corporate whistleblower retaliation cases are a result of an employee making an internal disclosure, rather than reporting to an external government agency, according to a new study by whistleblower attorney Stephen M. Kohn, an Adjunct Professor at Northeastern University School of Law and an expert in the field of whistleblowing.
"Whistleblower Disclosures: An Empirical Risk Assessment," a paper written by Kohn and his coauthors at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto LLP, examined the documented reporting behavior in whistleblower retaliation cases governed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act over an 8-year period, and found that over 90% of whistleblower cases resulted from internal whistleblowers.
As Kohn and his coauthors argue, this data presents compelling empirical evidence that supports Congress's recent proposals to amend laws like the Dodd-Frank Act to provide robust protection against retaliation for whistleblowers who report misconduct internally. As a result of a Supreme Court ruling in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers in 2018, the protections provided by Dodd-Frank for internal whistleblowers were repealed.
According to Kohn, "there is a high percentage of whistleblowers in retaliation cases, which provides policy makers with a clear picture of the risks employees face when they report wrongdoing to their corporations' internal channels in an attempt to do the right thing," as they report working conditions.. This risk is unnecessarily high and the data presented in this paper provide empirical support for Congress to amend Dodd-Frank as well as several other whistleblower programs in order to exclude internal whistleblowers from the anti-retaliation provisions
This risk is unnecessarily high and the data presented in this paper provide empirical support for Congress to amend Dodd-Frank as well as several other whistleblower programs in order to exclude internal whistleblowers from the anti-retaliation provisions
"Whistleblower Disclosures: An Empirical Risk Assessment" is the full working paper you can read.
If you would like to discuss the matter further with Kohn, he is available for further comments.
Geoff Schweller can be reached at [email protected]
Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto LLP is the source for this information

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