• 21
  • December
    2011

A recent article in Law.com talks about how 2012 is expected by some to be the "year of the SEC whistleblower." This past year was record-breaking in terms of the number of enforcement actions taken against those suspected of white collar crimes and financial fraud. Next year, the numbers of enforcement actions are expected to rise with the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 in August.

Since the passage of the act, the SEC received 334 tips regarding white collar crimes, most commonly involving market manipulation, offering fraud and corporate disclosure and financial statements.

The SEC has said that whistleblower reports are becoming higher quality and more common. According to Law.com, this is expected to increase because the SEC is now offering a cash bounty in cases where a person gives an internal company tip to the SEC and the tip leads to a recovery greater than $1 million.

In 2011, the SEC's enforcement actions totaled 735. The resulting amount recovered from these actions totaled $2.8 billion. The record number of cases included actions on insider trading and disclosure violations, among other crimes.

The SEC believes that the new incentive program for whistleblowers will lead to information that will help them improve their enforcement and investigative strategies.

Source: Law.com, "SEC Reports Record Year for Fraud Enforcements, Expects More in 2012," Sue Reisinger, Nov. 17, 2011