SEC Whistleblower Reward Program

Celebrating The First Five Years Of Dodd-Frank

By Marlene Koury July 21, 2015 will mark the fifth anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act – one of the most celebrated and maligned pieces of legislation in recent times, not to mention the most significant whistleblower law enacted since the False Claims Act.  The statute has done wonders in forcing Wall Street to clean up its act and has been responsible for extracting large penalties from public...

SEC Chair Gives Big Shout Out for Whistleblowers

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="288"] Photo Credit: sec.gov[/caption] By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Yesterday, SEC Chair Mary Jo White spoke at Northwestern University Law School on the invaluable role of the corporate whistleblower and the still burgeoning SEC whistleblower program that she describes as a "game changer" for government enforcement.  Here is her summary of the program's many...

In Their Own Words -- McKessy

-- The SEC will protect whistleblowers “against retaliatory conduct and make significant financial awards to whistleblowers who suffer employment hardships as a result of reporting possible securities law violations.”

Sean McKessy, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, in a statement regarding the SEC’s first award to a whistleblower for retaliation.  Click here for more.

SEC Announces First Award to Whistleblower in Retaliation Case

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team The SEC awarded $600,000 to a whistleblower who suffered "unique hardships, including retaliation" as a result of blowing the whistle on misconduct at hedge fund advisory firm Paradigm Capital Management.  The award is the maximum the SEC pays to whistleblowers – 30 percent of the amount the SEC recovers – and represents the first time the SEC has made an award to a...

Whistleblower Spotlight -- Halliburton Whistleblower Tony Menendez

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team This week's "Whistleblower Spotlight" features Tony Menendez, the former accounting executive at Halliburton who the company publicly "outed" after he complained to the SEC about what he saw as the company's multi-billion dollar accounting transgressions.  An in-depth profile of Menendez published last week by ProPublica and Marketplace provides tremendous insight into what...

SEC Awards Compliance Officer Whistleblower Over A Million Dollars

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team The SEC announced an award of more than a million dollars to a compliance officer who had a reasonable basis to believe that disclosure to the SEC was necessary to prevent imminent misconduct from causing substantial financial harm to the company or investors. This is the second award the SEC has made to an employee with internal audit or compliance responsibilities, after the...

SEC Charges KBR with Violating Whistleblower Protection Rule

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team The SEC yesterday announced its first enforcement action against a company for including improperly restrictive language in confidentiality agreements that had the potential to stifle whistleblowers.  According to the SEC, Houston-based global technology and engineering firm KBR Inc. violated Dodd-Frank Rule 21F-17 whistleblower protections by requiring witnesses in internal...

SEC Awards Half a Million to Whistleblower under Exception to Dodd-Frank

By The C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team The SEC announced a whistleblower award between $475,000 and $575,000 to a former company officer who reported original, high-quality information about the company's securities fraud.  The award is notable because it is the first award to an officer who learned about a fraud through another employee rather than firsthand. Under Dodd-Frank, officers, directors, trustees, or...

Department of Defense Moves To Bar Anti-Whistleblower Confidentiality Provisions

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Not all companies have embraced the rise of whistleblowers as a vehicle to root out fraud within their ranks.  In fact, many companies have gone in the exact opposite direction, doing everything they can to discourage whistleblowers from stepping forward.  One popular mechanism a growing number of companies are using to silence would-be whistleblowers are so-called...