Within the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower provisions, Congress included some stiff anti-retaliation protections. Since the Act’s passage, however, the lower federal courts have struggled to try to determine whether the anti-retaliation protections apply only to whistleblowers who file reports with the SEC or whether or not the protections extend to individuals who file internal whistleblower reports within their own companies. A split on this issue has developed within the federal circuit courts and now the United States Supreme Court may have the opportunity to address the question.
Continue Reading Which Whistleblowers Can Claim Dodd-Frank Act Anti-Retaliation Protection?
SEC’s Annual Report Highlights Whistleblower Awards
When Congress created the SEC Whistleblower program in the Dodd-Frank Act, one of the requirements was that the SEC’s Office of the Whistlblower would provide an annual report to Congress. On November 15, 2016, the SEC released its annual whistleblower report for the 2016 fiscal year (which ended September 30, 2016). The report shows that the agency continues to make substantial awards to whistleblowers, with six of the ten largest awards being made in FY 2016. The report also shows that the volume of whistleblower tips to the agency continues to increase as well. A copy of the agency’s FY 2016 report can be found here.
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Is the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Bounty Program Gaining Momentum?
While the SEC’s Dodd-Frank whistleblower program has drawn significant attention, the fact is that the program has gotten off to a slow start. As of the end of the last fiscal year, the SEC had during the program’s history received a total of 10,193 whistleblower reports, but had made only 14 whistleblower awards. (Indeed, the agency had rejected more award requests – 19 – than awards given.) While the agency’s deliberate pace in making awards seems unchanged, the agency continues to make substantial awards and the aggregate value of the awards is gradually becoming quite considerable.
On July 17, 2015, the SEC announced yet another significant award, a $3 million award to a company insider whose information “helped the SEC crack a complex fraud.” Consistently with the law’s requirements, the agency did not disclose the name of the whistleblower or the company involved. The SEC’s July 17, 2015 press release can be found here. The redacted July 17, 2015 SEC Order determining the whistleblower award can be found here.
Continue Reading Is the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Bounty Program Gaining Momentum?
SEC Whistleblowing Program: The Agency Means Business
The SEC wants you to know that it means business about its whistleblowing program. On April 1, 2015, in the latest in a series of steps to protect and encourage whistleblowers, the agency entered an order in an enforcement action against KBR saying that the company’s confidentiality requirements for internal investigation witnesses violated the agency’s
Whistleblowing: What Difference Does it Make?
In recent years, one of the favored responses of legislative reformers and regulatory enforcement authorities to financial fraud and other corporate misconduct has been the encouragement of whistleblowing activity. Both the Sarbanes-Oxley and the Dodd-Frank Act contained elaborate provisions designed to encourage and even to reward whistleblowers. There seems to be no question that the
SEC: Number of Whistleblower Reports Continues to Increase
The number of whistleblower reports to the SEC increased again in the latest fiscal year, according to the annual report of the SEC whistleblower office. The report, which the SEC is required by the Dodd-Frank Act to provide to Congress annually, is entitled the “2014 Annual Report to Congress on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program” and