SEC Whistleblower Lawyer Notes Success of SEC Whistleblower Program

An article in the National Law Journal titled “Could Donald Trump’s SEC Soften Enforcement of Severance Agreements?” quotes SEC whistleblower lawyer Jason Zuckerman about the potential impact of the Trump Administration on the SEC’s Whistleblower Program. The articles states:

Lawyers who focus on whistleblower law said they don’t expect the Trump administration to scale down the SEC’s program at large. Such a move would not square with Trump’s stated priority of rooting out corruption, said Jason Zuckerman of the Washington-based whistleblower firm Zuckerman Law.

“There’s no way for him to carry out that campaign promise without providing strong protection to whistleblowers,” Zuckerman said. “It’s also not so easy to undo the current administration’s legacy on whistleblower protection overnight.”

This year, the awards issued under the whistleblower program surpassed $100 million. On Monday, the SEC issued a more than $20 million bounty—the third largest in its history—to a whistleblower whose tip allowed regulators to “move quickly and initiate an enforcement action against wrongdoers before they could squander the money,” the agency said.

While there is some uncertainty about the impact of new SEC Commissioners on the direction of the SEC, there is a bipartisan consensus that whistleblower incentives are a very effective law enforcement tool. Indeed, the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act have enabled the government to recover more than $30B in fraud. The whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act have also proven very effective and so far have enabled the SEC to obtain more than $500M in penalties. We hope that President-elect Trump will carry out his promise to combat corporate corruption and that the SEC will continue to use the Dodd-Frank whistleblower incentives to achieve effective enforcement of the federal securities laws.

SEC Whistleblower Program

The experienced whistleblower lawyers at Zuckerman Law represent whistleblowers worldwide before the SEC under the Dodd-Frank SEC Whistleblower Program. The firm has a licensed Certified Public Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner on staff to enhance its ability to investigate and disclose complex financial fraud to the SEC, and two of the firm’s attorneys served in high-level position at a government agency that protects whistleblowers. Firm Principal Jason Zuckerman has been named by Washingtonian Magazine as a “Top Whistleblower Lawyer” and the firm has been ranked by U.S. News as a Tier 1 Firm in Labor & Employment Litigation.

See our post in The Compliance and Ethics Blog: Shkreli Trial Reveals the Challenges Faced by Compliance Whistleblowers.
See our column in Forbes: One Billion Reasons Why The SEC Whistleblower-Reward Program Is Effective.
See our column in Going Concern: Sarbanes-Oxley 15 Years Later: Accountants Need to Speak Up Now More Than Ever.
See our post in Accounting Today: Whistleblower Protections and Incentives for Auditors and Accountants.
See our article providing Tips for SEC Whistleblowers

Whistleblower law firm Zuckerman Law has substantial experience investigating securities fraud schemes and preparing effective submissions to the SEC concerning a wide range of federal securities violations, including:

To learn more about the SEC Whistleblower Program, download Zuckerman Law’s eBook: SEC Whistleblower Program: Tips from SEC Whistleblower Attorneys to Maximize an SEC Whistleblower Award: