Are SOX and Dodd-Frank Securities Laws? The Answer is 'Up in the Air'

Abstract

This contribution to the 2013 Instittue for Investor Protection Conference poses and addresses the question of whether the whistleblower provisions of SOX and Dodd-Frank raise the same set of policy concerns as private securities litigation, which have undergirded an increasingly skeptical approach from the bench over the past 20 years. Using the Court's recent decision in Lawson v. FMR LLC, the essay argues that the whistleblower provisions of SOX and Dodd-Frank do not raise the same set of concerns that have justified courts' hostile treatment of securities litigation.

Keywords: whistleblowers, Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley, vexatiousness, private securities litigation, securities litigation, bounty rewards