An overseas whistleblower who alerted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to ongoing fraud will receive an expected award of $30 million, breaking the agency’s record for the largest such sum it has ever paid.
SEC officials said the widespread securities violations would have been difficult to detect were it not for the whistleblower, whose identity they did not make public.
The award marks the fourth the commission has ever offered an individual living in another country.
According to the award order, the whistleblower waited an undisclosed amount of time before reporting the fraud because he or she “was purportedly uncertain whether the commission would in fact take action.”
Investors continued to suffer “significant monetary injury” while the individual mulled blowing the whistle, the order says.
The exact nature of the securities violation was redacted from official documents.
Sean McKessy, head of the SEC Office of the Whistleblower, said the record-breaking award highlights the international reach of policies meant to encourage individuals with knowledge of fraud to step forward.
“Whistleblowers from all over the world should feel similarly incentivized to come forward with credible information about potential violations of the U.S. securities laws,” McKessy said.
Under the SEC’s whistleblower program, those who provide original information that leads to sanctions over $1 million can earn 10 to 30 percent of the money collected in the case.
Fourteen such individuals have netted awards through the program since its inception in 2012.
Prior to this case, the largest SEC whistleblower award was $14 million, handed down in October 2013.
