Supreme Court’s UBS Case Buoys Whistleblowers Across Industries

The US Supreme Court’s decision siding with a fired UBS Group AG researcher will make it harder for companies in industries ranging from finance to airlines and consumer products to defend themselves from claims that they retaliated against whistleblowing employees.

The court unanimously found Thursday that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act doesn’t require a whistleblower to prove their employer had “retaliatory intent,” which the justices equated to animus. The decision, authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reversed a 2022 US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling requiring that plaintiffs meet that higher burden of proof to win a whistleblower retaliation ...