October 01, 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced today that it has awarded $14 million to a whistleblower for information and assistance.
This is the largest SEC whistleblower reward so far under the Dodd-Frank Act that created the SEC whistleblower program in 2010.
“We hope an award like this encourages more individuals with information to come forward,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White.
It certainly will. The SEC has paid two whistleblower rewards so far, one for $50,000 in 2012 and one for $25,000. The latter reward was paid in two installments to three whistleblowers in August and September. SEC officials had been saying for months that much larger rewards would be made soon.
Those earlier rewards were relatively small given the expectation that the SEC would award multi-million-dollar rewards based on the SEC whistleblower program’s potential to expose schemes costing investors hundreds of millions and possible billions.
Dodd-Frank set SEC whistleblower rewards in a range from 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected in a case. Based on the reward announced today, the SEC recovered between $46 million and $140 million as a result of the whistleblower’s help.