whistleblower award

Even Whistleblowers Must Pay the Piper

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In a heavily redacted decision issued on April 5, 2016, the SEC approved the claim of one whistleblower and denied the claim of another for providing information related to an unidentified enforcement action.  The SEC awarded $275,000 to the primary claimant (Claimant 1) but offset that amount by the monetary obligations due related to a separate Final Judgment.  Although the April 5 order was heavily redacted, the publicly available information confirms that the $275,000 award was based on a percentage of the monetary sanctions from both the SEC case and a related criminal action.  This is the first time an SEC order has required a tipster to spend whistleblower proceeds to settle a court-ordered debt.

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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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