New Survey Finds Most Workers Willing but Ignorant of Dodd-Frank

A newly published survey asked over 1,000 Americans questions regarding the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (“Dodd-Frank”).  As part of its comprehensive program to ensure corporate accountability and compliance, the Dodd-Frank Act created important new whistleblower protections and incentive programs to reward and protect individuals who report violations of the laws that govern a wide range of activities in the financial sector of the economy.

The survey found that 78 percent of respondents would report wrongdoing in the workplace if it could be done anonymously, without retaliation, and result in a monetary award.  Unfortunately, when asked whether they were aware that part of the Dodd-Frank Act provided for these protections and incentives when reporting violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), 68 percent of Americans surveyed said that they were unaware.  This might explain why, despite the fact that 34 percent of those polled said they had witnessed wrongdoing in the workplace, so few of those incidents went reported.

David J. Marshall, a partner at the Washington, DC-based whistleblower law firm of Katz, Marshall & Banks, had mixed feelings about the survey results.  “While I’m encouraged to see that, if given the appropriate protections, such an overwhelming majority of Americans are willing to stand up fraud and abuse on the part of their employers,” said Marshall, “I’m also disheartened to hear that not only are so many Americans still observing workplace misconduct, so few of them know about the rights and protections they are afforded under existing whistleblower legislation.”