Whistleblower Compliance policies? 552



  • I’m hoping to find out if there are any policies in the SOx act that state a publicly traded company needs an established/published whistleblowers policy?
    Can someone give me a definitive answer on that one?



  • No such requirement :roll:



  • Section 806 deals with Whistle Blower regulations. This is a very important part of SOX.



  • Section 806 deals with Whistle Blower regulations. This is a very important part of SOX.
    806 provides civil protection for employees who provide evidence of fraud i.e. it prohibits public companies from firing whistleblowers, or at least provides for civil penalties if they do.
    It does not mandate on whether a company needs an established/published whistleblowers policy



  • I’m hoping to find out if there are any policies in the SOx act that state a publicly traded company needs an established/published whistleblowers policy?
    Can someone give me a definitive answer on that one?
    PWC has white papers, good read on this very subject. (whistleblower hotline) Sarbanes - Oxley 301



  • I’m hoping to find out if there are any policies in the SOx act that state a publicly traded company needs an established/published whistleblowers policy?
    Can someone give me a definitive answer on that one?
    not to disagree with others, but to quote a noted source (not me):
    ‘SOX requires a system that employees can use to report complaints and concerns confidentially, and that makes sure those complaints are received, tracked, reported and acted on appropriately.’
    Congressional Record, pp. S7418 and 7420 (July 26, 2002):
    This provision would create a new provision protecting employees when they take lawful acts to disclose information or otherwise assist criminal investigators, federal regulators, Congress, their supervisors (or other proper people within a corporation), or parties in a judicial proceeding in detecting and stopping actions which they reasonably believe to be fraudulent. Since the only acts protected are ‘‘lawful’’ ones, the provision would not protect illegal actions, such as the improper public disclosure of trade secret information. In addition, a reasonableness test is also provided under the subsection (a)(1), which is intended to impose the normal reasonable person standard used and interpreted in a wide variety of legal contexts (See generally Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners v. Department of Labor, 992 F. 2d 474, 478). Certainly, although not exclusively, any type of corporate or agency action taken based on the information, or the information constituting admissible evidence at any later proceeding would be strong indicia that it could support such a reasonable belief. The threshold is intended to include all good faith and reasonable reporting of fraud, and there should be no presumption that reporting is otherwise, absent specific evidence.

    Under new protections provided by the Act, if the employer does take illegal action in retaliation for such lawful and protected conduct, subsection (b) allows the employee to elect to file an administrative complaint at the Department of Labor, as is the case for employees who provide assistance in aviation safety. Only if there is not final agency decision within 180 days of the complaint (and such delay is not shown to be due to the bad faith of the claimant) may he or she may bring a de novo case in federal court with a jury trial available (See United States Constitution, Amendment VII; Title 42 United States Code, Section 1983). Should such a case be brought in federal court, it is intended that the same burdens of proof which would have governed in the Department of Labor will continue to govern the action. Subsection © of this section requires both reinstatement of the whistleblower, back pay, and all compensatory damages needed to make a victim whole should the claimant prevail. The Act does not supplant or replace state law, but sets a national floor for employee protections in the context of publicly traded companies.

    Obviously, it behooves ANY company to create a tracking system to allow CONFIDENTIAL vetting of such ‘cases’ to protect themselves in case an employee says ‘hey - i blew the whistle and they fired me’ and the company has no proof of this while the employee has reams of documentation…
    so - while techinically there is NO such provision to create one i would similarly point to the internal revenue code taxation provision ‘of income from whatever source derived’ - while they don’t TELL say you must implement some sort of bookkeeping program… you SHOULD…[/i]


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