The news: The US securities regulator has charged ASX-listed investment manager GQG Partners with violating whistleblower protection rules and imposed a civil penalty on the firm.

The numbers: GQG’s wholly-owned US subsidiary will pay a US$500,000 ($725,000) civil penalty. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) found the firm entered into non-disclosure agreements with 12 candidates, between November 2020 and September 2023, for employment that prohibited them from disclosing confidential information about GQG, including to government agencies.

The context: The SEC’s order found that GQG also entered into a settlement agreement with a former employee whose counsel had told GQG that he or she intended to report alleged securities law violations to the commission.

It found that GQG violated whistleblower protection Rule 21F-17(a), which prohibits any action to impede an individual from communicating directly with the SEC staff about a possible securities law violation.

The SEC statement said GQG agreed to be censured, and to cease and desist from violating the whistleblower protection rule, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings.

What they said: “Whether through agreements or otherwise, firms cannot impose barriers to persons providing evidence about possible securities law violations to the SEC, as GQG did,” Corey Schuster, co-chief of the division of enforcement’s asset management unit, said in a statement.

The source:

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