Whistleblower Protection Standard Whipsawed In Second Circuit

An advisory from McKenna Long & Aldridge notes that two recent Second Circuit decisions had the effect of broadening whistleblower protection under Sarbanes-Oxley, but narrowing it under Dodd-Frank. In the first case, Nielsen v. AECOM Technology Corp., the court affirmed a Department of Labor Administrative Review Board decision that a whistleblower plaintiff’s communication does not have to “definitively and specifically relate” to a violation in order to qualify as protected activity, as long as the plaintiff has a subjective and reasonable belief that it does. But in Meng-Lin v. Siemens AG, a matter involving a citizen of Taiwan, the court proved to be more employer-friendly, finding there was no evidence Congress intended the anti-retaliation provision of Dodd-Frank to apply extraterritorially.