On March 26, 2019, the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower announced two multi-million dollar awards to whistleblowers who provided the SEC with information that assisted the agency in bringing a successful enforcement action. The larger of the two awards, $37 million, is the SEC’s third-highest award to date, after a $50 million award in March 2018 and a $39 million award in September 2018.
Jane Norberg, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, said in a press release that “[w]histleblowers like those being awarded today may be the source of ‘smoking gun’ evidence and indispensable assistance that strengthens the agency’s ability to protect investors and the capital markets.” She added, “[t]hese awards show how critically important whistleblowers can be to the agency’s investigation and ability to bring a case to successful and efficient resolution.”
Since the inception of the whistleblower program in 2011, the SEC has received over 22,000 whistleblower tips and awarded approximately $376 million to 61 individuals.