Articles Posted in Whistleblower award

The Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded at least $8.95 million to four whistleblowers in May 2016.

The first award was on May 13, 2016, when the SEC awarded a whistleblower $3.5 million for providing a tip that strengthened the SEC’s case in an ongoing investigation.  According to the order determining the whistleblower award claim, the tip helped give the SEC leverage in settlement negotiations with the bad-acting party.

A few days later on May 17, 2016, the SEC announced it would award between $5 million and $6 million to a former company insider whose tip led the SEC to uncover securities violations that would have been nearly impossible for it to discover without the whistleblower’s information.  That award, according to the press release, is the SEC’s third highest to a whistleblower.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced on April 4, 2016 an award of more than $10 million to a whistleblower who provided important, original information that led to a successful CFTC enforcement action.

The award is the largest made by the CFTC’s whistleblower program, according to a CFTC press release.

The CFTC whistleblower program, like the SEC’s program, was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.  It allows for payment of monetary awards to whistleblowers who voluntarily provide the CFTC with original information about violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”) that lead the CFTC to bring an enforcement action that results in more than $1 million in sanctions.  The total amount of the whistleblower award, according to the CFTC’s program website, is between 10 and 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected in the CFTC action.