摘要
【Abstract】In the last decade, we learned of massive scandals at some of the world's largest companies. In each of those cases, compliance officers were charged with ensuring that the company adhered to legal and regulatory requirements and their own internal codes of conduct, and yet, these companies were not protected from their own bad actors. Compliance functions have grown in importance, while, at the same time, it has become increasingly difficult to hire and retain qualified personnel for compliance roles. We posit that a key issue facing compliance personnel—one that could be improved with legislative attention—is the failure of the law to protect compliance officers from retaliation when they blow the whistle by reporting unlawful or unacceptable conduct to superiors inside the organization. In essence, when compliance officers do their jobs and alert the company to possible violations of law or take issue with the company's handling of a potential legal violation, these officers are vulnerable to retaliation and can be terminated, demoted, and the like without legal consequence. The very employees that organizations hire to protect them are themselves unprotected. In this article, we consider compliance officers in three areas: Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), securities fraud and financial regulation, and anti‐money laundering. In two out of the three areas, we find compliance officers uniquely exposed to lawful retaliation, while the third area provides a far more protective environment and offers a path forward for the other two. In both the EEO sector and the securities fraud sector, we highlight the common law doctrines and statutory interpretations that have created this situation for compliance officers. In contrast, the Anti‐Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA) provides exceptional protection for whistleblower compliance officers in this sector, and as a result, we propose using the AMLA as model legislation for proposed changes in the other two domains. The plight of compliance officer whistleblowers is complicated by courts that have intentionally and unintentionally narrowed protections without contemplating the broader implications of their actions. We propose that Congress respond to these narrowing doctrines so that compliance officers can effectively do their jobs and protect their organizations from legal liability and scandals, with the assurance of protection against retaliation as they perform this essential function.
摘要译文
【摘要】在过去十年中，我们在世界上一些最大的公司中得知了大规模的丑闻。在每种情况下，合规人员都被指控确保公司遵守法律和监管要求及其内部行为守则，但是，这些公司尚未受到自己的不良行为者的保护。合规职能的重要性已经增强，而同时，雇用和保留合格人员担任合规性角色变得越来越困难。我们认为，合规人员面临的一个关键问题（可以通过立法关注来改善的问题）是法律未能通过向组织内部的上级报告非法或不可接受的行为来保护遵守官员免于报复。从本质上讲，当合规人员从事工作并提醒公司可能违反法律的行为或在公司处理潜在违反法律违规行为时犯下质疑时，这些官员容易受到报复，并且可以被终止，降级，而没有法律后果。组织雇用以保护他们的员工本身受到保护。在本文中，我们考虑在三个领域的合规官：平等就业机会（EEO），证券欺诈和金融监管以及反洗钱。在这三个领域中的两个中，我们发现合规人员独特地接受了合法的报复，而第三个地区则提供了更大的保护环境，并为其他两个方面提供了前进的途径。在EEO部门和证券欺诈行业中，我们强调了为合规人员创造了这种情况的普通法学说和法定解释。相比之下，2020年的《反无钱的洗涤法》（AMLA）为该部门的举报人合规官提供了特殊的保护，因此，我们建议将AMLA用作其他两个领域拟议变更的模型立法。合规官举报人的困境使法院有意和无意地缩小了保护措施，而没有考虑其行动的更广泛的影响。我们建议国会对这些狭窄的学说做出回应，以便合规官员可以有效地完成工作，并保护其组织免受法律责任和丑闻的侵害，并保证在执行这一基本职能的情况下进行保护免受报复。
Jeffrey R. Boles [1];Leora F. Eisenstadt [2];Jennifer M. Pacella [3];. Protecting the protectors: Whistleblowing and retaliation in the compliance arena[J]. American Business Law Journal, 2025,62(1): 23-44