SEC Has Begun Paying Whistleblower Bounties

Reprinted with permission from ALM.

Since the creation of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program in August 2011, thousands of whistleblowers have submitted complaints about corporate wrongdoing, in hopes of receiving a monetary award. Corporations have long expressed concern that the program provides strong financial incentives for informers to bypass internal reporting and compliance systems and instead raise potential securities law violations directly with the SEC.