Sean McKessy

SEC Awards Third Highest Whistleblower Award to Date

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On July 17, 2015, the SEC announced a whistleblower award of over $3 million to a company insider who provided information that “helped the SEC crack a complex fraud.”  This payout represents the third highest award under the SEC’s whistleblower program to date.  The SEC has made two of the three highest payments to clients of the same law firm – Phillips & Cohen LLP. (The SEC paid roughly $14 million to a whistleblower in October 2013, and nearly $30 million to a foreign whistleblower represented by Phillips & Cohen in September 2014.).  This latest multi-million dollar payout suggests that the SEC’s whistleblower program is in full swing, and that legal representation of whistleblowers may be on the rise.

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Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Compliance Officer Whistles His Way to a Million Dollar Pay Day

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Whistle

Last week the SEC announced an award of between $1.4 to $1.6 million to a whistleblower who provided information that assisted the SEC in an enforcement action. The enforcement action against the whistleblower’s company resulting in monetary sanctions exceeding $1 million.  This marks the second award to a whistleblower with an internal audit or compliance function at a company.  The first was back in August 2014, when the SEC awarded a whistleblower in internal auditing/compliance with over $300,000.  Here, as with the prior award, the officer had a reasonable basis for believing that disclosure to the SEC was necessary to prevent imminent misconduct from causing substantial financial harm to the company or investors.  In both cases, responsible management was made aware of the potential harm that could occur, yet failed to take steps to prevent it.

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Will You Blow The Whistle Or Should I? The SEC Grants An Award to a Whistleblower Who Learns of Fraud From Another Employee

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Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced an award payout of between $475,000 and $575,000 to a former company officer who reported information about an alleged securities fraud.  While this is by no means the largest of the 15 payouts the SEC has made since the inception of the whistleblower program in fiscal year 2012 (the SEC awarded approximately $14 million to a whistleblower in October 2013, and roughly $30 million to a foreign whistleblower almost a year later), it is the first time that the SEC provided a whistleblower bounty award under the new program to an officer who learned about the alleged fraud through another employee, rather than firsthand.

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The SEC’s Whistleblower Program Has Had A Significant Increase In Tips Since Its Infancy

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Recently, Sean McKessy, chief of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Office of the Whistleblower, reported on the increase in whistleblower tips that have come rolling into his newly created department.  The SEC began monitoring these tips eight months ago when the final provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act enacted the whistleblower provisions in Section 21F of the Securities Exchange Act.  Section 21F of the Exchange Act directs the SEC to make monetary awards to whistleblowers that voluntarily provide original information that leads to successful enforcement action resulting in the imposition of monetary sanctions exceeding $1,000,000.  Qualifying whistleblowers can reap between 10 percent and 30 percent of the monetary sanctions.  READ MORE →