"Wall Street Whistleblowers: After The Largest Leak In Banking History, Are They Safe?", 9 Feb 2015

…[T]he fact that it took seven years for the biggest banking industry leak in history to become public raises questions about the state of financial whistleblower protections...[T]he life of the American financial whistleblower has nominally improved in the past five years. Experts say the U.S. has some of the strongest whistleblower protections in the world…The Dodd-Frank Act…created a raft of provisions to incentivize employees to report abuses both internally and to authorities. Employers are barred from retaliating against employees who lawfully report perceived wrongdoing…[But] “It’s a common phenomenon in the U.S. for corporations to seek civil or criminal prosecution of whistleblowers for stealing evidence,” Devine [legal director of the Government Accountability Project] said…In 2012, the Ethics Resource Center reported the incidence of employees facing retaliation had nearly doubled…[T]he private sector ha[s] instituted more and greater rules against public disclosure, using contracts to pressure employees into silence. And therein lies a crucial gap in the law, the Government Accountability Project argued in a letter to U.S. legislators…[Refers to HSBC]