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The SEC Whistleblower Program

By Steve Spivack and Erin Sullivan
February 26, 2014

On Oct. 1, 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it had awarded more than $14 million to an unidentified whistleblower who provided information leading to a successful enforcement action ' by far the largest payout to date under the SEC's two-year-old whistleblower program. Later that same month, on Oct. 30, the SEC announced another whistleblower award of more than $150,000.

To put these recent awards in context, before Oct. 1, 2003, the SEC had made awards to four whistleblowers; combined, they totaled only around $75,000. The SEC announced the first award under the program on Aug. 21, 2012: approximately $50,000 paid to a single whistleblower. A year later, in August 2013, the SEC announced that three whistleblowers who helped the SEC bring a case against Locust Offshore Management and its CEO Andrey Hicks would share an award of $25,515.

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