Law360, New York (March 19, 2014, 10:39 PM EDT) -- Last week the U.S. Supreme Court significantly expanded the scope of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's whistleblower provision. In Lawson v. FMR LLC, the high court ruled that SOX protects employees of a public company's private contractors and subcontractors — not just those of public companies as some courts have previously held. This significant expansion of which companies are subject to SOX follows two recent Fifth Circuit opinions that rein in the reach of whistleblower protections under SOX and the Dodd-Frank Act. These cases highlight the continuing and ever-shifting terrain of these federal whistleblower statutes and provide useful and cautionary guidance for employers facing ever-increasing retaliation claims....