CFTC Focuses on Whistleblowers as Enforcement Increases
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law LLC:
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC") is actively calling for whistleblowers who may know about misconduct as it extends enforcement to areas usually controlled by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
The CFTC recently released a series of four whistleblower alerts aimed at whistleblowers who might have information about insider trading, money laundering, foreign bribery, and violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. According to the CFTC, the alerts and other outreach efforts have increased the program's visibility, with its whistleblower office's website attracting more than 200,000 page views this fiscal year, up from roughly 41,000 in fiscal 2016.
The CFTC has continued to push the bounds of its enforcement capabilities this year, investigating at least one company for foreign corruption and working with the DOJ on several cases. For example, the agency recently brought a lawsuit against JPMorgan traders who were also the subject of criminal charges related to an alleged years-long spoofing scheme.
The CFTC's whistleblower program was created under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and allowed the regulator to reward whistleblowers who give it information about violations of the Commodity Exchange Act which leads to successful enforcement action. Whistleblowers can receive between 10% and 30% of the monetary sanctions paid by the offenders if the sanctions total at least $1 million. Since the program launched in 2011, the CFTC has awarded whistleblowers more than $90 million for their efforts.
Eccleston Law assists whistleblowers file their claims anonymously.
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Related Attorneys: James J. Eccleston
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