Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2024
Whistleblower protection laws are growing in strength and number across the globe. Whistleblowing workers enjoy stronger legal rights than ever before. But there are dangers. Laws can be undermined by powerful employers with deep pockets intent on exploiting loopholes to suppress public whistleblowing. Lawfare is one such tactic. Whistleblowers can find themselves exposed, and in extreme cases, prosecuted for speaking up. The high-profile story of Theranos’s Erika Cheung illustrates this chapter. As a twenty-three-year-old graduate, Erika blew the whistle on the most famous white-collar crime of recent years. After whistleblowing, she was aggressively pursued by her former employer’s legal counsel: a nationally renowned firm. Along with other whistleblowers, Erika’s testimony would prove pivotal in convicting senior executives. This chapter introduces the new world of whistleblower reprisal, including lawfare tactics ranging from NDAs to SLAPPs and over-reaching trade secrets laws. It points to the vulnerability faced by individual whistleblowers whose rights to protection ‘on paper’ offer scant help in practice. It shows how good lawyers are important, but in the end, they are often not enough.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.