From its inception, the (non) application of SOX to foreign issuers has been controversial.  Now the whistleblower protections of SOX have come into focus as another avenue for crossborder tensions.  The ABA Journal has a nice summary of current issues.  Europe, it turns out, is much less enamored of whistleblowers than we are in the States.  While "Americans like to elevate whistle-blowers to near folk-here status, from Daniel Ellsberg . . . to Sherron Watkins," in Europe, whistleblowers are often thought of as informants, as rats.  in Germany, "the term  term most likely conjures up memories of the Gestapo . . . .  In France, the term evokes images of the Vichy regime’s collaboration with the Nazis and of neighbors ratting out one another." 

No wonder that the EU has had some trouble coming to terms with the application of the new Sox whistleblower provisions to its issuers crosslisted in the US--especially the requirement that issuers establish procedures to allow employees to file internal whistleblowing complaints anonymously.  Europeans are apparently more concerned about the privacy and reputation of the accused.  "[W]hile the Americans are most concerned with protecting whistle-blowers to ensure market integrity, Europeans place a higher premium on guarding personal reputations of targets of complaints, which sometimes arise out of spite, revenge or other suspect motives."

Comparative Law, Employees, Europe | Bookmark

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345157d569e200d8345d776069e2

Links to weblogs that reference Sox and Offshore Whistleblowing: