CFTC Announces $1.5 Million Whistleblower Award

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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced it gave a whistleblower award of $1.5 million to a whistleblower, recognizing that individual’s contribution of significant evidence to the CFTC after first reporting his or her concerns internally. While there is no requirement that whistleblowers make the reports internally first, the commission is likely to give larger awards to those who attempt to do so.

Much like the SEC’s whistleblower program, the CFTC program does not reveal the identity of the whistleblower or the case the whistleblower aided in, so as to keep the whistleblower’s identity private.

CFTC program gains steam

The CFTC whistleblower program was established as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Whistleblowers can receive between 10 and 30 percent of monetary sanctions collected as a result of their tips, much as they can through the SEC program.

While the SEC program tends to earn more headlines and give out even larger awards, the CFTC has been gaining steam in its own right overt he last several years. The Commission took until 2014, four years after the program’s establishment, to hand out its first award, but since then it has awarded more than $85 million to whistleblowers, with DOE actions associated with those awards resulting in sanctions of more than $675 million.

The CFTC guarantees confidentiality protections for its whistleblowers, and does not disclose any information that could potentially reveal a whistleblower’s identity unless that disclosure is required in connection with public proceedings.

To learn more about filing a claim through the CFTC program, speak with a knowledgeable attorney at Kardell Law Group.

By Steve Kardell | Published August 1, 2019 | Posted in Whistleblower Litigation | Tagged $1.5 Million Whistleblower Award, CFTC, knowledgeable attorney, likely to give larger awards, SEC’s whistleblower program

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