Corporations Act Whistleblowing Provisions Could Be Tested In Federal Court Case
Thursday 2 February 2017 @ 11.46 a.m. | Corporate & Regulatory
A court case launched by a former employee of Origin Energy may be a critical test of the Corporations Act’s whistleblowing provisions. Sally McDow, a lawyer and former senior compliance manager at Origin, filed a general protections application in the Federal Court in 2015, alleging that she was made redundant shortly after filing a whistleblower report. The case has been ongoing since then, with a number of directions and interlocutory hearing heard between 2015 – 2016.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the latest amended statement of claim filed last week in the Federal Court ‘alleges a management cover-up that includes serious non-compliance with regulations relating to safety and the environment, hundreds of wells in Australia and New Zealand that hadn't been maintained for more than 10 years, leaks of oil and gas, contaminations, a failure to inform regulators or the ASX of breaches and the material altering of reports to the board on risk and compliance issues.’ Origin has strongly denied the claims.
The latest orders in the case were issued on 24 November 2016, allowing Ms McDow to file an amended statement of claim by 23 January 2017, limited to pleading causes of action based on breach of contract, breach of section 340 of the Fair Work Act 2009 and section 1317AC of the Corporations Act 2001.
Section 1317AC is part of Part 9.4AAA – Protection for whistleblowers of the Corporations Act 2000 (Cth) and is titled “Victimisation prohibited”. The section prohibits a person from actually causing, or threatening to cause, detriment to another person based on disclosures that qualify for whistleblower protection under the Act.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services is currently conducting an inquiry into whistleblower protections in the corporate, public and not-for-profit sectors. See TimeBase’s earlier article for more information on the inquiry’s consultation paper. Submissions to the inquiry close on 10 February 2017.
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