On February 27, the National Whistleblower Center, Sherron Watkins, Dr. Aaron Westrick, and Erika Cheung filed a joint amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in John Doe et al v. U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, arguing that the whistleblowers in the case should not have been denied an award.
The case concerns two whistleblowers who published reports online alleging misconduct by their company. While the whistleblowers filed a timely tip with the SEC, the SEC found the whistleblowers’ reports online independently and began an investigation based on those publicly available reports rather than the whistleblowers’ filing. In denying the whistleblowers an award, the SEC held that the information they provided had not “led to” a successful enforcement action, even though the enforcement action was based on reports written and published by the whistleblowers, and the whistleblowers included those reports in their Commission filing.
The amici argue that the SEC’s denial overlooks the central issue: under Dodd-Frank, the “original source” exception means whistleblowers remain eligible for awards even if the SEC learns of their allegations through the media, so long as the whistleblower was the original source of that information. The amici emphasize that Congress modeled these provisions on the False Claims Act and the IRS Whistleblower Program, both of which also protect original source whistleblowers even when information first appears in...
exporters knowingly avoided U. S. duties on Asian and European flat-rolled steel products, agreeing to pay $19 million to resolve the dispute, according to a press release issued Wednesday by the U...