The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued an award of over $18 million to a whistleblower who revealed detailed information and assistance in a CFTC enforcement action and in a related action by another agency. The whistleblower assisted the Division of Enforcement’s (DOE) staff that was significant in amount and quality. The whistleblower’s communications with the other agency led to a related action and were crucial to its resolution.
“This whistleblower contributed critical information and assistance to two agencies’ investigations,” said Whistleblower Office Acting Director Christina McGlosson. “With this award, our whistleblower program continues to incentivize whistleblowers to report directly to the CFTC with actionable information.”
The Whistleblower Program was created under Section 748 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Since issuing its first award in 2014, the CFTC has granted whistleblower awards amounting to approximately $365 million. Those awards are associated with enforcement actions that have resulted in monetary sanctions totaling more than $3 billion. The CFTC issues awards related not only to the agency’s enforcement actions, but also in connection with related actions brought by other domestic or foreign regulators, if certain conditions are met..
The Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) provides confidentiality protections for whistleblowers. Regardless of whether the CFTC grants an award, the CFTC will not disclose any information that could reasonably be expected to reveal a whistleblower’s identity, except in limited circumstances. Consistent with this confidentiality protection, the CFTC will not disclose the name of the enforcement action in which the whistleblower provided information or the exact dollar amount of the award granted.
Whistleblowers may be eligible to receive between 10 and 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected. All whistleblower awards are paid from the CFTC’s Customer Protection Fund, which was established by Congress, and is financed entirely through monetary sanctions paid to the CFTC by violators of the CEA. No money is taken or withheld from injured customers to fund the program.
JEFF NEWMAN IS A WHISTLEBLOWER LAWYER WHO HANDLES CASES UNDER THE CFTC AND SEC WHISTLEBLOWER PROGRAMS AS WELL AS HEALTHCARE FRAUD MATTERS UNDER THE FALSE CLAIMS ACT. HE CAN BE REACHED AT 617-823-3217 OR AT JEFF@JEFFNEWMANLAW.COM. HIS FIRM WEB SITE IS WWW.JEFFNEWMANLAW.COM
