By Robert B. Fitzpatrick
Principal of the law firm of Robert B. Fitzpatrick, PLLC in Washington, D.C.
In Liu v. Siemens, AG, No. 13-4385, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15637, 2014 WL 3953672 (2d Cir. Aug. 14, 2014) the Second Circuit, with Judge Lynch writing for a unanimous panel, held that the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, 15 U.S.C. § 78u-6(h)(1)(A), did not apply where the plaintiff, his employer, and the other entities involved were all “foreigners based abroad,” and where the whistleblowing, the purported activity which allegedly violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and the alleged retaliation occurred abroad, and where the plaintiff’s complaint stated “essentially no contact with the United States regarding either the wrongdoing or the protected activity.”
The Court also held that the plaintiff’s argument that Siemens’ voluntary election to publicly list a class of its securities with the New York Stock Exchange was the type of “fleeting connection” that the Supreme Court in Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank, Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869 (2010) held could not overcome the presumption against a statute’s extraterritoriality. See Celia Joseph, “Court Denies Extraterritorial Application of the Dodd-Frank Act’s Whistleblowing Provisions”, Cross Border Employer Blog, Fisher & Phillips, LLP (Sept. 8, 2014) (available at: http://www.crossborderemployer.com/post/2014/09/08/Court-Denies-Extraterritorial-Application-of-the-Dodd-Frank-Acts-Whistleblowing-Provisions.aspx); Rebekah Mintzer, A Low Note for Whistleblowers at the Second Circuit, American Lawyer Blog (Aug. 19, 2014) (available at: http://www.americanlawyer.com/id=1202667161707).
The Court explained that, to survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff must demonstrate:
[E]ither (1) that the facts alleged in his complaint state a domestic application of the antiretaliation provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, or (2) that the antiretaliation provision is intended to apply extraterritorially.
As an initial matter, the Court noted that, “this case is extraterritorial by any reasonable definition.” Having thus disposed of the first prong, Court devoted the bulk of its analysis to addressing the second prong of the test. Perhaps significantly, the plaintiff in Liu did not report the alleged conduct to the Securities Exchange Commission until after being terminated, thus forfeiting any argument that the termination was on account of a filing with the SEC. After, as explained above, determining that the “fleeting” contact of registering on a domestic exchange did not, under Morrison, bring Siemens within the application of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Court addressed whether the Dodd-Frank Act applied to extraterritorial conduct.
The Court framed its analysis on this point by noting that “there is absolutely nothing in the text of the provision…or in the legislative history of the Dodd-Frank Act, that suggests that Congress intended the [A]nti-[R]etaliation [P]rovision to regulate the relationships between foreign employers and their foreign employees working outside the United States.” Although conceding that the plaintiff “offers several arguments that the statutory language or context” of the Dodd-Frank Act was intended to have extraterritorial reach, the Court founds that the plaintiff failed to provide a “clear and affirmative indication” of legislative intent sufficient to overcome the presumption against extraterritoriality.
One of the plaintiff’s more interesting arguments was based on the SEC’s interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower bounty provision, 15 U.S.C. § 78u-6(b). The implementing regulations adopted by the agency provide that “you are not eligible [for an award] if:…You are…a member, officer, or employee of a foreign government, any political subdivision, department, agency, or instrumentality of a foreign government, or any other foreign financial regulatory authority.” 17 C.F.R. § 240.21F-8(c)(2). Elsewhere, the agency discusses the tax filing procedures for an award payment to a foreign national. See 76 Fed. Reg. 34300-01, 34348 n.370, 34320 (June 13, 2011). Liu argued that these regulations indicated that the SEC interpreted the Dodd-Frank Act to apply to conduct outside the United States.
Although noting that “Courts generally defer to reasonable agency interpretations of statutes that” they administer, the Court questioned whether “regulations should be accorded weight…with respect to [determining] the extraterritorial application of a statute.” Liu, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15637 at *17. The Court went on to note that the presumption against extraterritoriality was a “canon of construction” which was capable of resolving Congressional intent without resort to agency regulations. Id. at *18. The Court also held that, in any event, extraterritorial application of the bounty program did not necessarily imply extraterritorial application of the Anti-Retaliation Provision. Id. at *18. Interestingly, the Second Circuit decision came after at least one lower court’s pre-Morrison decision that a similar provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Section 806, did have extraterritorial application. See O’Mahoney v. Accenture Ltd., 537 F. Supp. 2d 506 (S.D.N.Y. 2008). It is unclear whether the Second Circuit’s decision in Liu overruled this interpretation, or whether SOX will continue to receive extraterritorial application – at least in the Southern District of New York – while Dodd-Frank Act does not.
In light of the Second Circuit’s holding it is worth considering whether Liu similarly cuts off extraterritorial application of the whistleblower bounty provisions. See Liu, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15637 at *18 (“even if we assume that the regulations clearly apply the bounty program to whistleblowers located abroad…”). Of course, there is some reason to believe that the two regimes would be treated differently – as the Second Circuit explained “[p]roviding rewards to persons, foreign or domestic, who supply information about lawbreaking is far less intrusive into other countries’ sovereignty than seeking to regulate the employment practices of foreign companies with respect to the foreign nationals they employe in foreign countries.” Id. at *19.
Indeed, the Securities and Exchange Commission has relied on this argument to distinguish Liu. In Whistleblower Award Proceeding, the SEC awarded Claimant, a foreign resident, a payment in excess of $30 million under 15 U.S.C. § 78u-6(b)(1) and 17 C.F.R. § 240.21F-3(a), the “bounty” provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. File No. 2014-10, Release No. 73174 (Sept. 22, 2014) (available at: http://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2014/34-73174.pdf). In so doing, the SEC found that “an award payment is appropriate here notwithstanding the existence of certain extraterritorial aspects of Claimant’s application.” Id. at n.2. The SEC reasoned that “there is a sufficient U.S. territorial nexus whenever a claimant’s information leads to the successful enforcement of a covered action brought in the United States, concerning violations of the U.S. securities laws, by the Commission. Id. In such instances, the location of the claimant’s employment, citizenship, and the location where the fraud occurred is irrelevant. Id. The SEC distinguished Liu on the ground that “the whistleblower award provisions have a different Congressional focus than the [A]nti-[R]etaliation [P]rovisions[.]” Id. It is worth noting that nearly twelve percent of the whistleblower tips received by the SEC during FY 2013 came from employees working outside the United States. See U.S. Securities & Exchange Comm’n, 2013 Annual Report to Congress on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program at p. 22 (available at: http://www.sec.gov/about/offices/owb/annual-report-2013.pdf).
The Second Circuit is not the first court to find that the Anti-Retaliation Provision of the Dodd-Frank Act did not apply to primarily extraterritorial events. In Asadi v. G.E. Energy (USA), LLC, Judge Nancy F. Atlas faced a similar set of facts. No. 4:12-345, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89746, 2012 WL 2522599 (S.D. Te. June 28, 2012), aff’d on other grounds, Asadi v. G.E. Energy United States, L.L.C., 720 F.3d 620 (5th Cir. 2013). In Asadi, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had terminated him in retaliation for reporting a violation of the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Id. Judge Atlas first examined the language of the Anti-Retaliation Provision and, finding that it was “silent regarding whether it applies extraterritorially”, proceeded to “consider the Provision’s ‘context.’” Id. at *15-16; citing Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank, Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869 (2010). In considering the Anti-Retaliation Provision’s “context”, the Asadi Court gave substantial weight to the fact that the Dodd-Frank Act “explicitly addresses extraterritorial scope of the statute in a limited context” in Section 929P(b) . Asadi, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89746 at *17. The Court recognized that Section 929P(b) contained explicit language regarding extraterritoriality, and that “when a statute provides for some extraterritorial application, the presumption against extraterritoriality operates to limit that provision to its terms.” Id.at *18 (internal quotations omitted). Quoting the Supreme Court’s holding in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, Ltd., the Court found that “when a statute provides for some extraterritorial application, the presumption against extraterritoriality operates to limit that provision to its terms” and that, accordingly, the language in Section 929P(b) “strengthens the conclusion that the Anti-Retaliation Provision does not apply extraterritorially.” Id. at *18 (quoting Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2883).
Similarly, while analyzing a similar provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Administrative Review Board in Villaneuva v. Core Labs. NV, noted that the Anti-Retaliation Provision of the Dodd-Frank Act does not apply to wholly extraterritorial conduct. ARB Case No. 09-108, ALJ Case No. 2009-SOX-006, 2011 DOLSOX LEXIS 82, 2011 WL 6981989 (ARB Dec. 22, 2011) (en banc) (interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 1514A). In Villaneuva, the plaintiff, a non-U.S. citizen, complained of conduct by the defendant, a Columbian company which does not list securities under Section 12, or file reports under Section 15(d), of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Id. at *2-3. The ARB found that the Employee Protection Provisions of Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 did not apply to the concededly wholly-extraterritorial conduct of which the plaintiff complained. Id. at *3. In so holding, the ARB drew a parallel to the Dodd-Frank Act, in which it endorsed the same reasoning later used by Judge Atlas in Asadi: that because Section 929P of the Dodd-Frank Act expressly provides for extraterritorial application, that other portions of the Dodd-Frank Act should not be extended by judicial interpretation into extraterritorial application. Id. at *27-29; see also Carnero v. Boston Sci. Corp., 433 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2006) (In a pre-Morrison case, the First Circuit found that Section 806 of SOX does not apply to extraterritorial conduct); but see Penesso v. LCC Int’l, Inc., 2005 SOX 00016, 2005 DOLSOX LEXIS 95, 2005 WL 4889018 (U.S. Dept. of Labor March 4, 2005) (denying motion for summary judgment because Complainant was a U.S. Citizen, much of the protected activity occurred in the U.S. and at least one of the retaliatory acts occurred in the U.S.). Interestingly, although the ARB based its holding in Villaneuva entirely on Section 806’s lack of extraterritorial application, on appeal the Fifth Circuit again ducked this issue, instead finding against Villaneuva on the grounds that he had not engaged in protected activity. Villaneuva v. United States Dept. of Labor, 743 F.3d 103 (5th Cir. 2014).
Although they have yet to find purchase, it is worth taking a moment to unpack the sophisticated arguments deployed to argue that the Anti-Retaliation Provisions should have extraterritorial effect. On appeal to the Fifth Circuit, the plaintiff in Asadi attempted to distinguish Morrison on the basis that “the whistleblower protections under Dodd-Frank rely entirely on the securities laws incorporated by the statute to establish liability.” Brief of Plaintiff-Appellant at 27, Asadi v. G.E. Energy (USA), L.L.C., No. 12-20522 (5th Cir. Oct. 22, 2012). Plaintiff went on to note that the laws incorporated by 15 U.S.C. § 78u-6(h)(1)(A)(iii) include those with “explicit extraterritorial applicability”, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Id. at 27, 29; 15 U.S.C.S. § 7241(a)(4)-(5). Asadi argued that by incorporating those statutes, the Anti-Retaliation Provision explicitly provided for its extraterritorial application. The Fifth Circuit did not address these arguments, opting instead to affirm the lower court’s holding on the alternative rationale that Asadi was not a “whistleblower” within the meaning of the Anti-Retaliation Provision. See Asadi, 720 F.3d at 630.
Although both Liu and Asadi determined that the Anti-Retaliation Provision of the Dodd-Frank Act did not apply to extraterritorial conduct, in neither case did the facts have more than a “fleeting” connection to the United States. In Liu, the Second Circuit found that the plaintiff had “essentially no contact with the United States”, while in Asadi the plaintiff conceded that “the majority of events giving rise to the suit occurred in a foreign country” and the only alleged connection with the United States was that the plaintiff was a dual U.S. and Iraqi citizen and that the plaintiff’s termination was governed by U.S. law. In neither case did the plaintiff allege that any deceptive conduct had occurred within the United States. So, although “clearly” extraterritorial conduct is not within the reach of the Anti-Retaliation Provision, it remains to be seen what level of domestic connection is required to sustain a successful claim.
