An anonymous whistleblower has asked a federal appeals court to overturn a Securities and Exchange Commission decision denying her a share of a record $279 million bounty award issued last month.
The lawsuit, filed under the alias Jane Doe, said the SEC erred when it awarded the entire sum—more than double the previous record award—to a single, anonymous tipster. The payout comes more than three years after the telecommunications company LM Ericsson agreed to pay the SEC and the Justice Department more than $1 billion to settle bribery allegations.
Ericsson bribed officials to win business in China, Egypt, Vietnam, Djibouti, Indonesia, and Kuwait, the U.S. Attorneys office for the Southern District of New York said in a Dec. 6, 2019 statement.
The whistleblower program, written into the Dodd-Frank financial reform law of 2010, provides for tipsters to receive up to 30% of any money recovered from a successful investigation by the SEC or any related actions by other federal agency. In this case, the DOJ and SEC each collected about $500 million from Ericsson to settle a long-running bribery probe.
The SEC’s final order announcing the award also denied claims by two other whistleblowers who said they were entitled to a share because they contributed to the investigation. Jane Doe’s lawsuit, filed May 31 by attorney Max Maccoby of the Washington Global Law Group, is filed under seal in keeping with program rules. A redacted, public report will be released later.
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