Corporate disclosures and financial statements
were two of the most common complaint categories of whistleblower
tips submitted to the US’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
the past 12 months.
An SEC report revealed the most common
complaint category was market manipulation, which accounted for the
16% of all submissions against 16% of offering fraud and 15% of
corporate disclosures.
The commission received 334 whistleblower tips
in just seven weeks, between 12 August and 30 September.
China tops the list of countries that
submitted whistleblower tips with 10 submissions, followed by the
UK with nine tips, Australia with three tips while Spain and the
Netherlands accounted for two reports each. Canada, Italy, Norway,
Serbia, Turkey and Uruguay all only submitted one whistleblower
notification.
The whistleblower programme was introduced
last year under the Dodd-Frank Act which authorises, among other
things, the SEC to pay awards to whistleblowers that voluntarily
provide original information about violations of the federal
securities laws to the SEC and it leads to a successful enforcement
action resulting in monetary sanctions in excess of $1m. The awards
can range from 10% to 30% of the sanctions recovered.
