Eugene Grygo, Chief Content Editor, FTF News
Does it pay to be a whistleblower?
The answer to that question may increasingly be in the affirmative as the CFTC just announced an award of “more than $10 million to a whistleblower who provided key original information that led to a successful CFTC enforcement action,” officials say.
“The award is the largest made by the CFTC’s Whistleblower Program to date and the third award to a whistleblower who provided valuable information about violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA),” add CFTC officials in a near-gush. The last award announced was in September 2015 and was approximately $290,000 — an amount that pales in comparison. The speculation is on about which recent case was worth $10 million.
A result of the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFTC’s Whistleblower Program pays monetary awards to “eligible whistleblowers who voluntarily provide the CFTC with original information about violations of the CEA that leads the CFTC to bring a successful enforcement action resulting in monetary sanctions exceeding $1,000,000.”
The regulator is hoping that sexy, multi-million dollar rewards will help counter the long-held belief on Wall Street that crime pays well.
“By providing robust financial incentives and enhanced protections to whistleblowers, the commission incentivizes people to come forward with high quality information about serious violations of the law that we might not otherwise uncover,” says Aitan Goelman, director of the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement, in a prepared statement. Millions of dollars is a demonstration of “the importance that the Commission places on incentivizing future whistleblowers,” Goelman adds.
Echoing Goelman, Christopher Ehrman, the director of the CFTC’s Whistleblower Office, says that the Whistleblower Program is working and that he hopes “this multimillion dollar award” will spur others on to honesty.
As a reminder, the CFTC is happy to announce the amounts that it pays out to whistleblowers but they decline to reveal 
the identity of the recipients or the nature of the case. The confidentiality provides cover for current and future whistleblowers.
As an extra precaution, the Dodd-Frank Act specifies that employers may not retaliate against whistleblowers for “reporting violations of the CEA to the CFTC.” In addition, “employers may not discharge, demote, suspend, threaten, harass, directly or indirectly, or in any other manner discriminate against a whistleblower because of any lawful act done by the whistleblower.”
Of course, with ten million dollars in your pocket, you can call tell your crooked employer to kiss your assets and leave.
In addition to CEA cases, the CFTC reports that it will also hand out monetary awards to “eligible whistleblowers whose information leads to the successful enforcement of a related action brought by another governmental entity where that action is based on original information submitted to the CFTC, and the CFTC also brings an action based on that same information,” according to officials.
Translation: if you’re privy to key information about securities-trading crimes that include commodities trading irregularities, bring it on.
The amounts that whistleblowers can reap is encouraging.
“Whistleblowers are eligible to receive between 10 percent and 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected,” according to the CFTC. “All whistleblower awards are paid from the CFTC Customer Protection Fund established by Congress and financed entirely through monetary sanctions paid to the CFTC by violators of the CEA. No money is taken or withheld from harmed investors to fund the program.”
Just in case you’re inspired, the CFTC’s Whistleblower Program’s new website is at www.whistleblower.gov.
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