During the past 10 years since the program’s inception, the SEC awarded more than $500 million to 83 individual whistleblowers, while recouping more than $2 billion—including more than $1 billion in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and interest—from fraudsters and others who violated the SEC’s rules. Of this amount of recovered monies, the SEC has returned or is scheduled to return almost $500 million to harmed investors.
“Remarkably, the commission has awarded more to meritorious whistleblowers in the last six months than it did in the entire 2019 fiscal year: more than $64 million compared to $60 million, which, again, reflects the quality and value of the information provided by the whistle-blowers,” Better Markets said.
Berry, the former SEC attorney, also noted that “this is the first time the program is confronted with the fallout from a recession, and so it’s not surprising that the number of tips is increasing more than any other year since the program started. And it’s not just the recession. Added to that is the impact of the pandemic—millions of people without work or working at home away from their colleagues. All of that can lead to a very large increase in whistle-blower tips this year,” Berry said.