CFTC Makes $4 Million Whistleblower Award
On November 12, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a $4 million award to two whistleblowers under the CFTC Whistleblower Program. With this award, the agency has now issued roughly $390 million in whistleblower awards since its first award under the program in 2014. These awards have been associated with more than $3.2 billion in monetary sanctions.
The award follows a flurry of whistleblower awards the CFTC issued in September and since the Spring—all of them relatively modest in size, like the current award, with none of them even close to the $200 million award the CFTC made in October 2021 to the LIBOR benchmark manipulation whistleblower.
But the CFTC has issued more awards this year than any other and several of them have been quite notable in who the whistleblowers were—like company outsiders or compliance professionals—with the CFTC stressing that most anyone can be a whistleblower under the agency’s program.
The CFTC provided no insight into the two whistleblowers receiving this most recent award other than to note the information they provided “formed the basis for the CFTC’s investigations underlying the covered action.” The agency also indicated the first-reporting whistleblower received a higher portion of the award “based on the timeliness of the reporting.” Timely reporting has been a constant theme the CFTC has pushed to encourage whistleblowers to come forward as soon as possible.
In announcing the current award, CFTC Enforcement Director Ian McGinley stressed how “critical” timely reporting is under the whistleblower program because “they help prevent further harm to customers or market participants and hold wrongdoers accountable to the fullest extent possible.”
CFTC Whistleblower Chief Brian Young echoed this sentiment, highlighting how the agency and its staff “encourage all whistleblowers to come forward as soon as possible, since the timeliness can affect the award determination.” He used the current award split between the two whistleblowers as a case in point: “This is a perfect example of how the whistleblower rules allow for increased awards for timely initial reports and additional assistance while also providing a decreased award for those who unreasonably delay reporting.”
So if you have information of potential commodities fraud, the CFTC has once again made it clear it wants to hear from you as soon as possible. If you have questions about the CFTC’s program or what it means to be a whistleblower, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We will connect you with an experienced member of our whistleblower team for a free and confidential consult.