When an employee’s former manager adds material to a terminated employee’s file post termination to beef up the excuses for the termination, it is never a good sign. That was apparently done by JPMorgan Chase to a terminated whistleblower after he went to the New York Times to complain about certain brokerage practices. This additional material was in the form of alleged customer complaints. The problem for the bank was that when these customers were contacted, they denied bringing the information to the bank. Indeed it turned out that the terminated whistleblower’s former manager wrote up the complaints and put them in the whistleblowers file. This and other factors led to a Department of Labor finding that the employee was terminated in violation of Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower protection provisions and a monetary award. A spokesman for the bank indicated it would appeal the findings.
