Wall Street Journal Quotes TELG Principal on Dodd-Frank SEC Regulations

In an article in today’s Wall Street Journal and in a Wall Street Journal blog post, Jason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, was quoted regarding new regulations proposed by the SEC for its Whistleblower Reward Program:

“Whistleblowers should not be required to go to their companies first,” said Jason Zuckerman….  [He] didn’t like that the SEC is encouraging whistleblowers to go to the companies first. He called corporate-compliance programs “mostly a lot of window dressing” that “too often are misused” to retaliate against the whistleblower. He added: “If these programs really worked well, and really performed legitimate investigations and brought about corrective action, then the widespread fraud that helped bring down our economy would never have happened. It’s just common sense.”

The SEC recently proposed new regulations that will implement the Whistleblower Reward Program established last July under the Dodd-Frank Act.  The program requires the SEC to reward whistleblowers up to 30% for information leading to a recovery of funds exceeding $1 million.  The proposed rules include:

• Whistleblowers reporting corporate wrongdoing internally to their company would not be disqualified from receiving a reward so long they report the wrongdoing to the SEC within 90 days.
• The SEC would recognize the date a whistleblower reports internally when determining which whistleblower first reported the corporate wrongdoing.
• The SEC would also grant larger rewards to whistleblowers who reported internally.

For more information about The Employment Law Group® and its SEC Whistleblower Practice, click here.

Tagged: Dodd-Frank Act, Enforcement Bodies, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)