Qui Tam

New SEC Whistleblower Rewards and Whistleblower Protections Approved by House Committee--But Improvements Are Needed

By Finch McCranie, Esq.

Since the Madoff and Stanford schemes proved ruinous to so many investors, many have asked why the SEC has no meaningful "whistleblower" program to expose wrongdoing, a topic we have written about previously.

Perhaps Harry Markopolis' voice is finally being heard, albeit faintly. Last week, the House Financial Services Committee approved legislation that would expand both whistleblower rewards and whistleblower protections, among other things.

Still, past experience with the False Claims Act and the IRS Whistleblower statute shows that the proposed rewards need to be beefed up to be effective.

The ?Investor Protection Act of 2009? (excerpted below) also would increase the SEC?s budget and make other changes designed to strengthen enforcement.

The new rewards to whistleblowers would be up to 30% of monetary sanctions of more than $1 million:

"In any judicial or administrative action brought by the Commission under the securities laws that results in monetary sanctions exceeding $1,000,000, the Commission, under regulations prescribed by the Commission and subject to subsection (b), may pay an award or awards not exceeding an amount equal to 30 percent, in total, of the monetary sanctions imposed in the action or related actions to one or more whistleblowers who voluntarily provided original information to the Commission that led to the successful enforcement of the action."

The proposed new whistleblower rewards are reminiscent of those under the new IRS Whistleblower Program, but need at least two corrections to be effective.

First, the current SEC bill creates no enforceable "right" to a reward--a defect that made the old IRS Whistleblower statute ineffective before it was amended in December 2006.

Second, there should be a minimum percentage of perhaps 15% for the SEC rewards; it should not be left at 0-30%, as the bill now reads. Who would risk a 1% (or even lower) reward? The False Claims Act only became effective after 1986 amendments increased rewards to at least 15% in most cases. The new IRS Whistleblower law is attracting whistleblowers left and right because it provides for a minimum of 15% in most instances.

The proposed SEC law has one advantage over the IRS version: The IRS law unfortunately omits protection of whistleblowers from retaliation, but the proposed SEC whistleblower provisions would provide a remedy similar to that furnished whistleblowers under the False Claims Act. Here is what the proposed bill states (in part):

"An employee, contractor, or agent prevailing in any action brought under subparagraph (B) shall be entitled to all relief necessary to make that employee, contractor, or agent whole, including reinstatement with the same seniority status that the employee, contractor, or agent would have had, but for the discrimination, 2 times the amount of back pay, with interest, and compensation for any special damages sustained as a result of the discrimination, including litigation costs, expert witness fees, and reasonable attorneys' fees."

The bill's proposed SEC whistleblower language is below; the entire bill may be found here:

Full post as published by Whistleblower Lawyer Blog on November 09, 2009 (boomark / email).