Nine years have passed since David Danon began helping SEC investigators build a case against Vanguard, uncovering information about a scheme that led the company to return to its investment funds more than $2 billion that had been hidden in a bid to avoid taxes.
The Texas comptroller’s office rewarded Danon for his work, and the Securities and Exchange Commission twice filed legal briefs on his behalf, arguing that whistleblowers must be protected.
But when it came time to get paid, the SEC Office of the Whistleblower stopped returning his calls, according to a July federal court filing.
Danon’s allegations fit a pattern in the agency’s handling of several high-dollar cases involving banks, pharmaceutical companies, and investment houses, a Bloomberg Law review of lawsuits and agency documents shows. The agency has opened investigations and worked with whistleblowers for years, or passed their information on to other agencies that recouped money, then refused to provide details on why it denied their claims.
Despite the SEC’s hype over the occasional huge award, many of the big financial fraud cases the program was built to prevent may slip through the cracks or are passed on to other agencies, attorneys say. The program, set up in the wake of Bernie Madoff’s $64.8 million Ponzi scheme, received...
A new exchange of sharp political statements has emerged after US President Donald Trump made claims on Truth Social that were directly rejected by Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghaliba...