The whistleblower program at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a resounding success story. It is responsible for returning billions of dollars to harmed investors. It does so by incentivizing whistleblowers to report lawbreaking to the SEC. If their information leads to a successful enforcement action, the whistleblower receives a percentage of the monetary sanctions collected. The whistleblower program is thus crucial to securities regulation by motivating individuals who know about misconduct to identify wrongdoing that might not otherwise come to the SEC’s attention. But with the appointment last year of SEC Chair Paul Atkins, a longtime critic of the whistleblower program, the program appears to be in danger.
The Office of the Whistleblower (OWB) at the SEC recently released its annual report for fiscal year 2025, and the report reveals a reduction in whistleblower compensation across the board. The whistleblower program awarded the least amount of money to whistleblowers in the last five fiscal years, had the smallest award size in the last five fiscal years, and denied whistleblowers awards in final decisions at the highest rate in the last five fiscal years. The SEC issued 123 orders denying whistleblowers awards in fiscal 2025, a record for the whistleblower program.
This is especially troubling because the importance of the whistleblower program will only increase as the SEC under Chair Atkins undertakes record low enforcement activity....
Amid the prosecution’s request for a bench warrant against Kim Se-ui, the representative of Hoverlab accused of defaming actor Kim Soo-hyun, the police concluded through their investigation that t...