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
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.
Continue Reading With Latest Awards, Total SEC Whistleblower Awards Top $1 Billion
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.
Continue Reading SEC Awards Second-Largest Ever Whistleblower Bounty
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.
Continue Reading SEC Grants Largest Ever Individual Whistleblower Award
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.
Continue Reading “Tenacious” SEC Whistleblower Awarded More Than $27 Million
Whistleblowing has a long and respected tradition in the United States. In more recent times, whistleblowing and its protections have been part of several legislative schemes, including, for example, the creation in the Dodd-Frank Act of the SEC Whistleblower Program. The recent whistleblower complaint about President Trump’s July 2019 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, underscores the continued important role of whistleblowing in the our political and business culture. As the events surrounding the recent whistleblowing complaint also show, whistleblowing is often regarded as a provocative act, and that, at a minimum, whistleblowing can be highly divisive.
A recently published book, “Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in the Age of Fraud,” written by journalist Tom Mueller, takes a detailed look at the role of whistleblowing in our culture, and the ways in which, despite all of the surrounding controversy, whistleblowing remains an indispensable part of maintaining order and enforcing our values and expectations.
Continue Reading Book Review: “Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in the Age of Fraud”
On March 26, 2019, the SEC announced that it was awarding two whistleblowers a total of $50 million for providing the agency with information that led to a successful enforcement action. The two awards consisted of an award to one individual of $13 million and an award to a second individual of $37million. The $37 million award is the third largest award in the history of the SEC’s whistleblower program. The SEC’s March 26, 2019 press release announcing the awards can be found here. The SEC’s whistleblower award order can be found here.
Continue Reading SEC Awards Two Whistleblowers $50 Million, Including Third Largest Ever Individual Award
Amidst the flurry of Supreme Court decisions, new lawsuits, and other activity in the last few days, I have not yet had the chance to comment on a particularly important development earlier this week. That is, on March 19, 2018, the SEC announced the two largest whistleblower bounty awards in the history of its whistleblower bounty program. The value of the two awards to three whistleblowers, whose reports led to a $415 settlement with Merrill Lynch, totaled roughly $83 million. These awards are significant, and not just because of their size, as discussed below. The SEC’s March 19, 2018 press release about the awards can be found here, and the SEC’s heavily redacted March 19, 2018 Order Determining Whistleblower Award Claims can be found here.
Continue Reading A Lot is Going On Now, But Don’t Overlook the SEC’s Whistleblower Awards Earlier This Week
One of the signature features of the Dodd-Frank Act was its creation of an SEC Whistleblower program. Under the program, the SEC can award whistleblowers a bounty of between ten percent and thirty percent of any recoveries the SEC makes in excess of $1 million as result of the information whistleblower provided. The program went into effect in 2011, and the agency immediately began receiving a huge volume of whistleblower reports. Over time the agency has made a number of awards, including the September 2014 award of $30 million, which is still the largest award under the whistleblower program.
While the program has been in operation now for several years, it recently kicked into high gear and the program has passed a number of important milestones. The trend lines suggest that the SEC whistleblower program is going to be an increasingly important part of the corporate liability landscape, and for that reason there are a number of important things to keep in mind.
Continue Reading Six Things to Know Now About the SEC Whistleblower Program
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