WASHINGTON, DC, July 17, 2015 – A whistleblower represented by Phillips & Cohen LLP has received what is currently the Securities and Exchange Commission’s third largest whistleblower reward — more than $3 million — for providing information and assistance that led to a significant enforcement action.
The SEC awarded a Phillips & Cohen client last September the largest SEC whistleblower award made so far — more than $32 million — for information and assistance that exposed and ended a massive securities fraud.
Today’s award is the second one the SEC has made to a Phillips & Cohen client in the past 10 months under its Dodd-Frank whistleblower program.
“I was very concerned about the company’s misleading and deceptive business practices,” said Phillips & Cohen’s whistleblower client.
“The SEC acted quickly as a result of the information and assistance our client provided,” said Erika A. Kelton, a whistleblower attorney with Phillips & Cohen. “The fraud was such that it’s unlikely that it ever would have been detected if our client hadn’t come forward.”
In both SEC reward cases, the whistleblowers chose to remain anonymous to protect their jobs and careers. To guard the whistleblowers’ confidentiality as provided by the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC doesn’t disclose information that ties whistleblowers to particular enforcement actions taken against companies or individuals.
Dodd-Frank encourages private citizens to report wrongdoing to the SEC by offering whistleblowers anonymity, job protection and a reward. The whistleblower may receive 10 percent to 30 percent of the amount the government collects from the securities law violator.
Note: As of January 2020, Phillips & Cohen has won four SEC whistleblower awards for its clients.