DOL's View
Thomas Spinner was a CPA whose firm provided accounting and audit services to a public company. Spinner's accounting firm was not publicly-traded. A month after being assigned to audit the pubic company, Spinner was removed and fired. As required by S-O-X, he filed a whistleblower complaint with OSHA alleging that his termination was the result of his reporting internal control problems at the customer. A year later, in February 2010, OSHA concluded that Spinner was S-O-X protected, but he would have been terminated regardless of his report.
Spinner appealed to an ALJ, who granted summary decision to his employer because it was non public and, thus, outside the scope of S-O-X. Spinner pressed on until the DOL Administrative Review Board (ARB) issued its decision, two years later, concluding that Spinner was protected by S-O-X. Spinner v. David Landau and...
