Thomson Reuters Corp. lost a bid to have a judge throw out a lawsuit by a former employee who claims he was fired for telling the FBI that the company’s “tiered release” of a consumer survey violated insider-trading laws.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan declined to dismiss the case, which was filed in April. The former employee, Mark Rosenblum, claims he was fired in retaliation for telling U.S. authorities that the company gave some customers an advantage by releasing the Thomson Reuters University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers to them first.

Thomson Reuters released the data to high-frequency traders two seconds before other subscribers, according to Rosenblum’s complaint. The public received the data five minutes after subscribers, he said. The arrangement gave an illegal advantage to the traders who got the data first, according to Rosenblum.

Thomson Reuters in July suspended its early release of the survey data as part of an agreement with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who was investigating the matter.

John Shaughnessy, a spokesman for New York-based Thomson Reuters, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail message seeking comment on the ruling.

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