/>iYesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced awards totaling over $570,000 to two whistleblowers paid out by the investor protection fund. The first will receive a whistleblower award of approximately $478,000, and the other will receive the remainder.
Chief of the SEC’s Whistleblower Office, Jane Norberg, stated, “[t]he substantially higher award granted to the first whistleblower demonstrates the importance of providing information early in the investigation and the benefit to whistleblowers where the information leads to multiple enforcement actions.”
According to the award order, the larger award was in part because the first whistleblower provided information “early in the investigation, played a critical role in helping staff develop their case, and related to all enforcement actions.” Additionally, the first whistleblower’s information aided multiple agencies and served significant law enforcement interests.
The investor protection fund was established by Congress, in the Dodd-Frank Act, to provide monetary awards for eligible SEC whistleblowers. Sanctions lobbied against securities law violators entirely finance the fund. Whistleblowers that provide original information that leads to successful actions can collect from 10%- 30% of the total sanctions assessed as a result of their help- provided the sanctions exceed $1 million. A whistleblower who would like to remain anonymous must hire an attorney to file a TCR form (whistleblower complaint) on their behalf.
The SEC’s Whistleblower Office has paid over $395 million to whistleblowers since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act’s qui tam reward provisions.
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