CNBC released a story yesterday about the qui tam provisions of the new Dodd-Frank Act, the financial reform law. They call the whistleblower provisions "little-noticed," indicating that we here at the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) still need to do a better job of informing the media about new developments in whistleblower protection.
In the article, NWC Executive Director Stephen M. Kohn tells CNBC, "If the law works, whistleblowers should be rewarded with millions of dollars. Those whistleblowers will save investors billions and billions of dollars." CNBC notes that the new provision could have helped whistleblowers like Harry Markopolos who tried in vein to get the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to act against Bernard Madoff. If Dodd-Frank was in place then, Markopolos could have filed a qui tam claim, stopped Madoff's ponzi scam, and collected a portion of Madoff's ill-gotten gains. CNBC commented that NWC's seminar last Friday shows that lawyers are "chomping at the bit" for a share of the recoveries.
CNBC reports on another event last Friday. The SEC awarded $1 million to Glen Kaiser and Karen Kaiser who provided information that helped the SEC win an insider trading case against Pequot Capital. CNBC reports that this award was the largest paid by the SEC for information in an insider trading case.
"It won't take very many whistleblowers in the large brokerage houses to win their cases," Kohn adds, "in order for people to get the message that anyone sitting in that room with you may become a multimillionaire by turning in your fraud. The beauty of this law is essentially it uses greed to fight greed."CNBC provides a link to NWC's announcement of the Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections.
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