Boston Employment Lawyer Blog

Workplace discrimination complaints by employees against private employers to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rose by 9% last year, signifying the largest annual increase since the early 1990s. The EEOC reported that complaints increased to 75,768 during the 2006 budget year, up from 75,428 in the previous year. Discrimination complaints based on race, retaliation, and sex were the most common. Below is an overview:

• Race discrimination complaints totaled 27,238; about 35.9% of all EEOC filings

• Sex discrimination complaints totaled 23,247; about 30.7% of all EEOC filings

• Retaliation complaints totaled 22,555; about 29.8% of all EEOC filings

• Handicap discrimination complaints totaled 15,625; about 20.6% of all EEOC filings

• Age discrimination complaints totaled 13,569; about 17.9% of all EEOC filings

• Sexual harassment complaints totaled 12,025; about 15% of all EEOC filings

• National origin discrimination complaints totaled 8,327; about 11% of all EEOC filings

• Religious discrimination complaints totaled 2,541; about 3.4% of all EEOC filings

(It is not uncommon for employees to suffer more than one type of discrimination, which is why the total exceeds 100%)

Age discrimination and handicap discrimination complaints recorded double-digit percentage increases. Complaints about discrimination based on pregnancy also rose by 14% to 5,587. In 2006, the EEOC was successful in recovering $274 million in compensation for employees reporting discrimination. The Washington Post reported on these figures in an article entitled, Job Discrimination Filings Rise in 2006

Posted by David Conforto | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Age Discrimination , EEOC , Gender/Sex Discrimination , Handicap/Disability Discrimination , Hostile Work Environment , National Origin Discrimination , Pregnancy Discrimination , Race Discrimination , Retaliation , Sarbanes-Oxley , Workplace Discrimination

Bookmark:

Whistleblowers working abroad for American subsidiaries just scored a major victory. The Southern District of New York in O'Mahony v. Accenture et al. recently ruled that the plaintiff, Rosemary O'Mahony, states a valid claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). O'Mahony, a British citizen, worked at Accenture in France for 14 years before being suddenly demoted after alerting her superiors in both the United States and France that the company failed to make more than $3 million in social security payments to France.

The main issue before the Southern District of New York was whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act applies to employees, like O'Mahony, working overseas. The court held that SOX applied to O'Mahony because: (1) she was employed and compensated by a United States subsidiary of a foreign corporation; (2) the alleged retaliation and cover-up implicated Accenture employees working in the United States; and (3) the suit was being brought against a "foreign parent and its United States subsidiary for the alleged misconduct of the United States subsidiary in the United States."

To read more about the case, please visit Law.com's article entitled, N.Y. Judge Applies SOX Protections to Ex-Partner of Global Firm's French Office.

Posted by David Conforto | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Executive Advocacy , Sarbanes-Oxley , Whistleblower

Bookmark:

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an important opinion last week in Allen v. Administrative Review Board clarifying the definition of protected conduct under Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act. SOX prohibits a publicly-traded company from retaliating against an employee who reports information to a supervisor “regarding any conduct which the employee reasonably believes constitutes" various types of fraud (mail, wire, bank or securities fraud), a violation of any rule or regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a violation of any provision of federal law relating to fraud against shareholders.

Although the Fifth Circuit in Allen held that the employees did not engage in protected conduct, the opinion provided guidance on what exactly constitutes such conduct. Among other things, the court opined that an employee's whistleblowing activity must be “definitively and specifically” related to prohibited conduct defined under §1514A ; the whistleblower's belief of improprieties will be scrutinized under both the subjective and objective standards; a whistleblower's mistaken, but reasonable, belief that an employer engaged in prohibited conduct still constitutes protected activity.

A whistleblower under SOX will need to also show a nexus between the protected conduct and the adverse employment action. Suspicious timing is typically sufficient to carry this burden. In Collins v. Beazer Homes USA, Inc., the District Court of Georgia held that a two-week temporal proximity between reporting improprieties and termination is sufficient to suggest that the employee's protected activity was a contributing factor to unfavorable personnel action. The Company may only avoid liability where it demonstrates by “clear and convincing” evidence that it would have taken the same unfavorable personnel action in the absence of the employee's protected conduct.

Posted by David Conforto | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Retaliation , Sarbanes-Oxley , Whistleblower

Bookmark: