All eyes have recently been focused on the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement of its new corporate whistleblower awards program. The DOJ’s program potentially could have a significant impact on future corporate crime prosecutions, but meanwhile the Securities Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program has been up and running for years and indeed just passed the thirteenth
Whistleblowers
Guest Post: What Board Members Need to Know About the New German Whistleblower Protection Act
Regular readers know that I post frequently on this site on whistleblower-related topics. However, my discussion of whistleblower-related topics is generally focused on whistleblowing in the U.S. There have been significant recent whistleblower-related developments outside the U.S. For example, and as discussed in detail in the following guest post, a draft whistleblower protection act is now circulating in Germany. If adopted the new act could have significant implications, as discussed below. This guest post was written by Frank Hülsberg, who is a Chartered Accountant and Tax Advisor in Düsseldorf, Partner Advisory and Member of the Executive Board at Grant Thornton AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft in Germany, and Burkhard Fassbach, a D&O-lawyer in private practice in Germany. I would like to thank Frank and Burkhard for allowing me to publish their article on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Frank and Burkhard’s article.
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Record-Setting Year for SEC Whistleblower Program
By almost any measure, Fiscal Year 2021 (ended September 30, 2021) was a watershed year in the history of the SEC’s Whistleblower program. According to the recently published annual report of the SEC’s Whistleblower Office, during FY 2021 the agency made the highest annual number of awards in the history of the program, both in terms of dollars and individuals awarded. Indeed, during FY 2021 the agency made more whistleblower awards than in all of the program’s prior years combined. The SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower’s November 15, 2021 Report to Congress can be found here.
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With Latest Awards, Total SEC Whistleblower Awards Top $1 Billion
With the latest whistleblower awards to two individuals totaling $114 million (including an award to one individual of $110 million), the total amount awarded under the SEC whistleblower since its first award in 2012 now totals over $1 billion. The pace in the number and size of awards has accelerated significantly in the past year, as the SEC under the Biden Administration had pursued a pro-whistleblower approach. A copy of the SEC’s September 15, 2021 press release about the latest awards can be found here. The agency’s September 15, 2021 order regarding the awards can be found here.
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SEC Awards Second-Largest Ever Whistleblower Bounty
In what is, according to the SEC itself, the second-largest whistleblower award in the history of the agency’s whistleblower program, the SEC has awarded two joint whistleblowers a bounty of over $50 million. The agency’s order making the award is heavily redacted, in order to protect the whistleblowers’ identities, so it is hard to tell very much about the circumstances surrounding the award. But the award is the latest in what has been a recent flurry of very large whistleblower awards by the agency. The SEC’s April 15, 2021 press release announcing the award can be found here. The April 15, 2021 award order can be found here.
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SEC: Record Number of Whistleblower Tips and Awards During FY 2020
The SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower received a record 6,911 whistleblower tips during FY 2020, which ended September 30, 2020. The nearly 7,000 reports represent a nearly 33% increase over the number of tips received during the prior fiscal year, according to the Office’s recently released annual report. The Office also made awards representing a record high annual dollar value and to a record annual number of individual award recipients during the fiscal year. A copy of the November 16, 2020 report can be found here.
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SEC Awards Largest-Ever Whistleblower Bounty of $114 Million
It was only this past June when the SEC made what was at the time the largest ever whistleblower award — $50 million – to a single individual. As it has turned out, that record stood for only a short time, as on October 22, 2020, the SEC shattered the prior record, paying out a whopping whistleblower bounty of $114 million to a single individual. The SEC’s award order is heavily redacted to protect the identity of the whistleblower so relatively is known about the circumstances surrounding the award, but even so the sheer size of the award makes a serious statement. The SEC’s October 22, 2020 award order can be found here. The SEC’s October 22, 20202 press release about the award can be found here.
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Guest Post: How the SEC Whistleblower Program Has Changed Corporate Compliance and SEC Enforcement
In the following guest post, Matt Stock and Jason Zuckerman take a look at five ways that the SEC whistleblower program has affected both corporate compliance and the SEC’s enforcement efforts. Matt and Jason represent whistleblowers worldwide in whistleblower rewards and whistleblower retaliation claims. My thanks to Matt and Jason for allowing me to publish their article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Matt and Jason’s article.
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SEC Grants Largest Ever Individual Whistleblower Award
In a June 4, 2020 press release (here), the SEC announced that it had granted an individual a $50 million whistleblower award, the largest ever award to a single individual. While there had been a prior $50 million award that two individuals shared, the largest prior award to a single individual was a 2018 award of $39 million.
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“Tenacious” SEC Whistleblower Awarded More Than $27 Million
In the largest such award so far this year, the SEC has awarded more than $27 million to a whistleblower, an award amount that the Commission increased above staff recommendations in recognition that the whistleblower had “repeatedly and tenaciously” voiced his concerns about the misconduct within his organization before reporting it to the agency. As discussed below, there are a number of noteworthy features about this award. The Commission’s April 16, 2020 order about the award can be found here. The Commission’s April 16, 2020 press release about the award can be found here.
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