A former UBS bond strategist who secured a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporate whistleblowers suffered a major legal blow on Monday when an appeals court threw out his jury-awarded damages.
In a 2-1 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that flawed jury instructions in Trevor Murray’s 2020 trial made it too easy to link his whistleblowing to his firing by the Swiss banking giant. The ruling spares UBS from paying Murray the $903,300 jury award, along with $1.77 million in legal fees.
The court found that Murray’s whistleblowing had to be a direct cause of his termination, not just a general influence. The case now returns to the lower court for further proceedings.
Murray had alleged that UBS dismissed him in 2012 after he raised concerns about pressure to issue overly optimistic research on commercial mortgage-backed securities. The bank, however, maintained that his termination was part of broader cost-cutting efforts following a $2 billion trading loss.
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that lowered the burden of proof for financial industry whistleblowers, Monday’s decision throws Murray’s legal battle back into uncertainty.
