LAWRENCE — The federal government is relying more than ever on whistleblowers to sniff out corporate fraud and misconduct. According to a new study from the University of Kansas, the government programs that pay “bounties” to whistleblowers who come forward have, themselves, been hampered by mismanagement, cronyism and abuse.
Alexander Platt, associate professor of law, spent the better part of two years battling the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission over a series of Freedom of Information Act requests for information about the whistleblower programs. When he finally prevailed, he quickly saw what the agencies might have been trying to cover up. Among other findings presented in his study, Platt shows that the CFTC has awarded nearly two-thirds of all money to tipsters represented by a single law firm and the SEC had disproportionately favored tipsters represented by former SEC officials.
“These are extremely secretive programs,” Platt said. “The agencies have to preserve anonymity for whistleblowers, many of whom still work for companies they’re reporting on. The problem is, the agencies have invoked this justification as an excuse to also hide embarrassing or controversial information about the programs' operations.”
A summary of Platt’s findings was recently published on the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog. The full study, entitled “The Whistleblower Industrial Complex,” is available on SSRN.
Since Congress created the...
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