Typically, whistleblower awards range from 10% to 30% of money collected when sanctions ordered exceed $1 million. The information discovered through these whistleblowers enabled the SEC to bring actions that resulted in $504 million ordered in sanctions, much of which has been returned to harmed investors.
As part of its mission, the Whistleblower Office ensures that employees feel safe reporting suspected misconduct. To that end, the SEC has taken action under the antiretaliation provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act as well as four actions against companies for their inclusion of problematic verbiage in confidentiality and severance agreements that blocked whistleblowers from reporting.
“The SEC whistleblower program has had a transformative impact on the agency, enabling us to bring high quality enforcement cases quicker using fewer resources,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC Division of Enforcement. “The ultimate goal of our whistleblower program is to deter securities violations and paying more than $100 million in whistleblower awards demonstrates the value that whistleblowers have added to our enforcement program.” For more information about the whistleblower program and how to report a tip, visit www.sec.gov/whistleblower.
November 2016
