Whistleblower Issued $200 Million by U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission

A whistleblower has been issued $200 million by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

On Thursday, October 21, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) awarded a whistleblower the most significant whistleblower award in history, an amount to the tune of nearly $200 million. The U.S. regulator released a statement on Thursday regarding the matter. Still, it did not release many details about the case and the name of the award's beneficiary to protect the whistleblower's identity.

This is the most significant single whistleblower award announced to the public since the CFTC started its whistleblower program in 2014 under the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires whistleblowers be given 10 to 30 percent of the amount collected by the CFTC in a successful enforcement action yielding monetary sanctions of over $1 million.

According to the statement, the award was issued due to the credible and timely documentation and trading information provided to authorities by the whistleblower in 2012, which was important to the success of an open investigation by the CFTC, a U.S. federal regulator, as well as to the success of two related actions by a foreign regulator. "According to the order, the whistleblower's information led the CFTC to important, direct evidence of wrongdoing. In order to qualify for an award, a whistleblower who significantly contributed to the success of an enforcement action must demonstrate that there is a "meaningful nexus" between the information provided and the CFTC's ability to complete its investigation successfully and to either obtain a settlement or prevail in a litigated proceeding. The Commission determined here that the whistleblower met this standard." The whistleblower provided

The whistleblower was a client of Kirby McInerney; a law firm specialized in securities, antitrust, whistleblower, and consumer litigation. Kirby McInerney represents whistleblowers on a lot of U.S. whistleblower programs. In a statement released by the law firm, it says it is pleased that the CFTC has recognized that the whistleblower deserved a substantial award. "Today, we can say the system works," said David Kovel, a managing partner of the law firm and Kirby McInerney's lead partner on the case.

Since the start of the program to date, the CFTC has paid more than $3 billion to whistleblowers for their help in enforcing monetary sanctions. The award money is sourced from the CFTC Customer Protection Fund, which is essentially money gotten from sanctions imposed on those caught violating the Commodity Exchange Act.