March 3, 2022
Transcript: “Whistleblowers – Best Practices in a New Regime”
We’ve posted the transcript for our recent webcast for members, “Whistleblowers: Best Practices in a New Regime.” Cooley’s Zach Hafer, WilmerHale’s Susan Muck and Gibson Dunn’s Harris Mufson shared all sorts of practical tips for effective whistleblower programs, handling complaints, board matters and more.
With awards surpassing more than $1 billion under the SEC’s whistleblower program and more employees being willing to speak out, this is a topic that every company needs to know about. Here’s a nugget from Zach about handling complaints:
In the very early stages, a company should assess whether to involve outside counsel, even if just for a consultation. Obviously not every whistleblower situation calls for a full engagement of outside counsel to conduct an internal investigation, but you should assess it and consider consulting outside counsel in the first instance. Some of the factors that would be relevant to a decision like that would be: how high up did the allegations go, how isolated or far-reaching is the conduct, and how inappropriate is the conduct or the alleged conduct?
If the whistleblower is anonymous, my strong advice would be to not spend time trying to figure out who it is – you want to steer clear and stay within the lines of anti-retaliation and related laws. If the whistleblower is not anonymous, to the extent it’s practicable, I’d limit the number of people who know their identity. It can be a lot more distracting than helpful trying to identify the whistleblower, whereas if the whistleblower is anonymous, it would be difficult to retaliate or take any actions that could be construed as retaliatory. That’s one reason why, even if certain executives and counsel know the identity of the whistleblower, it’s best practices to shield that identity to the extent possible.
If you aren’t yet a member, email sales@ccrcorp.com to sign up today and get access to the full transcript.
– Liz Dunshee