Search results for: whistleblower awards
More Thoughts on Whistleblower Awards
Today let’s revisit the Justice Department’s whistleblower awards program, first announced 10 days ago. Since then we’ve all had time to contemplate the program’s implications, several of which deserve compliance professionals’ attention. Let’s begin with the question most important to compliance professionals: Will the existence of this awards program drive would-be whistleblowers not to report…
Read MoreStudy: Whistleblower Awards Cut Fraud Risk
Compliance professionals have another neato academic study to start your week, this one finding that the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act reduce the risk of accounting fraud at publicly traded firms by as much as 22 percent. Measuring the effect of Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower provisions has long been tricky business, because the law went into…
Read MoreSEC Updates Whistleblower Awards Program
The Securities and Exchange Commission has, at long last, updated the rules for its whistleblower awards program. Among the changes: a presumption toward more generous awards at the lower end of the pay scale, restrictions on people who abuse the tipster process too often, and faster disposal of would-be tips that don’t meet the awards…
Read MoreA Telling SEC Whistleblower Award
Another week, another tantalizing whistleblower award from the Securities and Exchange Commission! This time around, the agency has doled out $20 million to some senior corporate officer who first tried to get the company to investigate a misconduct allegation internally, and then went to the SEC when the company took no action. The SEC announced…
Read MoreDOJ Awards Program Goes Live
The U.S. Justice Department has formally launched its whistleblower awards program to encourage tips about corporate crime, complete with a dedicated website where whistleblowers can submit their tips and new policies that might let companies reap the benefit of self-disclosure even if whistleblowers report the misconduct first. Deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco unveiled the awards…
Read MoreLessons From Whistleblower Award
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a $37 million whistleblower award last week, and before the case fades from memory compliance officers should give it a close look; the details offer a useful glimpse into the importance of getting internal reporting systems right. The award was handed out on July 26, and as usual we…
Read MoreJustice Dept. Launches Whistleblower Program
The Justice Department is climbing aboard the whistleblower awards bandwagon, with a new program it plans to launch later this year offering monetary awards to whistleblowers akin to what numerous other federal agencies already do. Deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco made the announcement Thursday while speaking to the American Bar Association’s white-collar crime conference in…
Read MoreCongress Tries Anew on Whistleblower Fixes
Several big names in the Senate have filed legislation that would clarify the protections for whistleblowers who first report their concerns to internal compliance teams and force the SEC to decide whistleblower awards more quickly. Dubbed the “SEC Whistleblower Reform Act,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, filed the bill last week along…
Read MoreSEC Reforms Whistleblower Reforms
The Securities and Exchange Commission quietly voted last week to expand the ways that whistleblowers might win awards for reporting misconduct to regulators, and reversed previous rule changes from the Trump Administration that capped especially large awards. Neither development is a surprise, nor should they be particularly disruptive to the internal reporting programs that corporate…
Read MoreTips on Whistleblower Tips
I had the good fortune this week to attend a panel discussion on the latest developments in whistleblower tips and SEC enforcement. Given how often whistleblower tips turn into big, complicated headaches for corporate compliance officers, let me pass along some insightful morsels from the speakers. The panel was part of the day-long Securities Enforcement…
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