Overview
In an opinion today, Judge Scheindlin denied a motion to dismiss a case brought by a former employee of Thomson Reuters who claimed that he was fired for complaining internally, and to the FBI, that the company’s selective release of certain survey data constituted insider trading. As we reported in a prior post, Thomson Reuters argued that Dodd Frank’s whistleblower protections cover only reporting to the SEC, and cited a Fifth Circuit case in support. In today’s opinion, Judge Scheindlin disagreed with the Fifth Circuit and allowed the case to proceed. She found that “a narrow reading of the statute requiring a report to the SEC conflicts with” other statutory language and, given the ambiguity, concluded it was appropriate to defer to an SEC rule endorsing the broader reading.
