J.P. Morgan Chase & Co on Friday won the dismissal of a US whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former vice president who claimed the bank ignored red flags about a client's potential fraud, even after authorities exposed the massive Ponzi scheme operated by longtime J.P. Morgan client Bernard Madoff.
US District Judge Robert Sweet in New York granted the bank's motion to throw out the complaint, finding that Jennifer Sharkey had failed to demonstrate that her termination in August 2009 was in retaliation for speaking out. Instead, he said, J.P. Morgan had shown there were legitimate performance-related reasons to fire her at the time. Sharkey's lawyer, Lawrence Pearson, said she would appeal. J.P. Morgan, which has previously denied her allegations, did not respond to a request for comment.
The decision marks the second time Sweet has dismissed Sharkey's lawsuit. In December 2013, Sweet ruled that Sharkey had not met the necessary standard for whistleblower protection under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In an unrelated case in 2014, however, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals imposed a lower bar for whistleblower protection under Sarbanes-Oxley. The court then reversed Sweet's decision, ordering him to reconsider whether Sharkey's case should be allowed to proceed under the newer, more lenient standard.