Dodd-Frank rules govern Wall Street whistleblowers.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) of 2010 created whistleblower programs in both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that authorize cash rewards to whistleblowers who voluntarily provide those agencies with information leading to the successful prosecution of violations of securities and commodities laws.
Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC and CFTC are required to pay whistleblowers cash rewards of 10 to 30 percent of any monetary sanctions in excess of $1 million that the government, as a result of the whistleblowers’ assistance, recovers through either civil or criminal proceedings. In order to qualify for such rewards, whistleblowers must provide the SEC with “original information”:
The Dodd-Frank Act gives the agencies wide discretion to determine the specific dollar amount of any cash reward within the 10 to 30 percent range by considering, among other factors:
Unlike qui tam claims filed under the Federal False Claims Act (FCA), SEC and CFTC whistleblower claims do not involve the filing of a suit against the party who has committed the fraud. Rather, the whistleblower typically hires an attorney to:
Dodd-Frank whistleblower claims can be filed anonymously, but only if the whistleblower acts through an attorney. In addition to permitting anonymous filings, which itself offers significant protection for the whistleblower, the Dodd-Frank Act provides several robust whistleblower protection provisions, including three additional whistleblower retaliation causes of action and enhancements to the retaliation provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and False Claims Act.
The types of securities and commodities violations that may be presented to the SEC and CFTC are as varied and complex as the financial, securities, and commodity markets themselves. Areas of SEC interest include:
The CFTC’s primary area of interest is trading in agricultural, energy and metals commodity futures and options.
In selecting counsel to pursue a security or commodity whistleblower claim, an important consideration may be the financial resources available to the whistleblower’s counsel to retain the very best experts in the fields of finance, accounting, and securities regulation to substantiate the whistleblower’s claims before the SEC or CTFC. As a mid-size national plaintiffs’ firm with extensive resources at our command, Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel routinely works with expert witnesses in many different fields. We do not hesitate to retain the services of the best experts in their fields required to bring cases to successful resolution.
What is Qui Tam?
Under the Federal False Claims Act (FCA), whistleblowers have the power to save taxpayers billions of dollars each year by taking a stand against fraud. The U.S. False Claims Act allows private citizens to file suits on the government’s behalf when the government has been defrauded through any federally funded contract or program. The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act allow these citizens to recover damages. A number of states and the city of Chicago also have laws similar to the False Claims Act to protect against fraud. To learn more about the different types of fraud … READ MORE
January 10, 2025 Attorneys from Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel have secured a recovery for three whistleblowers who exposed massive fraud within the Texas Medicaid program. On December 19, 2024, a Texas district court judge ordered the State of Texas to pay the three their rightful portion of a record $212.3 million settlement...
October 17, 2024 Individual whistleblowers working with the U.S. Department of Justice helped secure a record 543 settlements and judgments and the recovery of more than $2.68 billion under the False Claims Act (FCA) in 2023. The results solidify the FCA as one...
April 4, 2024 Whistleblowers who expose fraud have strong protections from employer retaliation based on a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Murray v UBS Securities. In a unanimous opinion, the justices held that a whistleblower does not have to prove that their...
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