On September 9, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced settled charges against seven public companies for violations of certain whistleblower protections provided by Rule 21F-17 under the Securities...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“Commission” or “SEC”) whistleblower program has, by all accounts, been a huge success. Added to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) as Section 21F by the...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently awarded $3 million to joint whistleblowers despite concluding that the whistleblowers did not satisfy the technical eligibility requirements for receiving an award. See...more
On November 30, 2017, the SEC Office of the Whistleblower issued a bounty award of more than $16 million to two tipsters; each received an award of more than $8 million. The SEC denied awards to five other claimants....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission released an Order Determining Whistleblower Award Claim holding that the whistleblower’s award should be reduced to 20% of the monetary sanctions collected...more
Risk Alert (literally)! Standard provisions in employment agreements, severance agreements and policies may run afoul of the SEC’s whistleblower regulations. In the wake of several highly publicized enforcement actions by the...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently announced that two companies agreed to pay penalties of more than $500,000, combined, for illegally requiring employees to waive their rights to monetary awards from the...more
The SEC has fined an Atlanta company $265,000 for using various severance agreements restricting whistleblower activities. The Dodd-Frank Act added ’34 Act § 21F encouraging whistleblower programs....more
On August 10, 2016, the SEC announced that BlueLinx Holdings Inc. (Company) is settling charges that it violated Rule 21F-17 by requiring outgoing employees to waive whistleblower bounty awards in connection with severance...more
Wednesday, the SEC announced that an Atlanta-based company, BlueLinx Holdings, is settling charges that its severance agreements contained provisions that in its view might impede employees from communicating directly with...more
The SEC announced a whistleblower award totaling more than $325,000 for a former investment firm employee who tipped the agency with specific information that enabled enforcement staff to open an investigation and uncover the...more
On September 9, 2015, Sean McKessy, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower (OWB) spoke at Thomson Reuters’ 4th Annual Corporate Whistleblower Program in New York. With the standard disclaimer that his comments and...more
In the wake of Dodd-Frank’s passage in July 2010, many companies and corporate organizations lobbied the SEC on its upcoming whistleblower rules. One of their specific goals was to require whistleblowers, to be eligible for...more
On Friday, July 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will award more than $3 million to a company insider who helped the SEC “crack a complex fraud.”...more