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Foreign Whistleblowers Fuel SEC Enforcement Activity, Raising the Stakes for Global Corporate Compliance

By Jonathan B. New and Samuel M. Light

On July 21, 2010, when President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Whistleblower Program went into effect, entitling “eligible” whistleblowers to an award of 10%-30% of the monetary sanctions collected in actions brought by the SEC. An “eligible” whistleblower is a person who voluntarily provides original information about a possible violation of the federal securities laws that has occurred, is ongoing, or is about to occur. If that information leads to a successful SEC action resulting in an order of monetary sanctions over $1 million, the whistleblower(s) can collect their bounty. Over the lifetime of the program, the SEC has addressed more than 390 award claims and has awarded more than $67 million to 29 individuals, known as claimants, in connection with 16 actions.

Neither Dodd-Frank nor SEC regulations prohibit a foreign national or U.S. citizen living or working abroad from being an eligible whistleblower. And as the SEC continues to see an uptick in both the quality and quantity of tips under the Whistleblower Program, those tips are increasingly coming from individuals outside of the United States. With this new increase in whistleblowing tips coming from foreign jurisdictions, companies must be prepared, and must adjust their compliance and monitoring systems to work within this new paradigm.

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