Plenty of focus on whistleblower Mark Livingston's fight with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, hailed as one of the first cases decided by a federal court under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Livingston claims he was fired for raising concerns that vaccine production employees were not properly trained, in violation of FDA regulations, and a consent decree previously imposed on Wyeth by the FDA. Evelyn Pringle has an interesting look at that in www.opednews.com.

What's interesting is the attempts in America to elevate whistleblowers to folk-hero status. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, and Enron's whistleblower Sherron Watkins, are two obvious examples. I have blogged on attempts to compare them to paul Revere and anti-corruption cop Frank Serpico.

But European regulators have resisted whistleblower protections sought by US companies. In the US, comparisons might be drawn with Paul Revere but in Germany, for instance, whistleblowers can conjure up memories of the Gestapo and in France, of the Vichy collaborators. There is a fascinating discussion of this in the piece Culture Clash in the American Bar Association Journal.

With transnational fraud increasing and with attempts to extend Sarbanes-Oxley's reach beyond US borders, this is shaping up as quite an issue. One that has to be addressed.