NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A former UBS bond

strategist who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to make it

easier for corporate whistleblowers to win retaliation lawsuits

suffered a setback on Monday, as a jury verdict awarding him

back pay and other damages was thrown out.

In a 2-1 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in

Manhattan said defective jury instructions at Trevor Murray's

2020 trial made it too easy to conclude that his whistleblowing

contributed to the Swiss bank's decision to fire him.

A contributing factor "must actually cause or help cause the

termination decision - it is not enough merely to influence the

termination, or generally to be the type of thing that tends to

cause termination," Circuit Judge Michael Park wrote.

The decision means UBS need not pay Murray the $903,300 jury

verdict, plus $1.77 million for legal bills.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan had

instructed jurors that whistleblowing could be a contributing

factor in Murray's termination if it "tended to affect in any

way" UBS's decision to fire him.

Park said this let jurors hold UBS liable without proof that

Murray's whistleblowing "actually did" lead to his firing. The

appeals court returned the case to Failla.

Murray's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for

comment. UBS declined to comment.

Monday's decision followed a unanimous Supreme Court ruling last

February that restored the jury verdict, which the 2nd Circuit

had previously thrown out.

That ruling said financial industry whistleblowers need not

prove their employers fired them with "retaliatory intent," but

only that they were treated differently for whistleblowing.

Murray said UBS fired him in February 2012 after he

complained about pressure to issue bullish research on

commercial mortgage-backed securities to support the bank's

trading operations.

He said UBS's conduct violated the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate

governance law.

UBS said it fired Murray as part of a broader cost-cutting

that included thousands of job losses, following a $2 billion

loss by a rogue trader.

Circuit Judge Myrna Perez dissented from Monday's decision,

saying reasonable jurors would have understood Failla's

"perfectly adequate" instructions.

The case is Murray v UBS Securities LLC et al, 2nd U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 20-4202.