Guest Post from Proskauer’s Whistleblower Defense Blog.
Written By Steven J. Pearlman, Lloyd Chinn, Harris Mufson and Noa Baddish on November 12, 2014

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Verfuerth v. Orion Energy Systems, Inc., No. 14-cv-352 (E.D. Wis. Nov. 4, 2014) recently ruled that the Dodd-Frank whistleblower protection provision does not protect employees who only report alleged violations of the securities laws internally. In dismissing a former CEO’s whistleblower retaliation claim, the court followed the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Asadi v. F.E. Energy (USA), L.L.C., 720 F.3d 620 (5th Cir. 2013) and held that the text of the statute requires that a “whistleblower” report an alleged violation to the SEC to be covered by Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower protection provision.