{"id":4500,"date":"2021-02-21T00:21:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T00:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4500"},"modified":"2021-02-21T00:21:01","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T00:21:01","slug":"the-sec-undermined-a-powerful-weapon-against-white-collar-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4500","title":{"rendered":"The SEC Undermined a Powerful Weapon Against White-Collar Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“In a quiet vote on Sept. 23, the Republican-dominated SEC adopted amendments<\/a> that could allow it to lower payments to whistleblowers. Its argument is that awards should only be as large as necessary to prompt people to come forward, and excessively high payouts might be better spent on other priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocates say that may dissuade whistleblowers, insulating the biggest Wall Street banks and investment firms, which are typically subject to the largest fines and whose wrongdoing is often the most difficult to spot without help from highly paid insiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SEC\u2019s shift may exacerbate the effects of the Trump administration\u2019s blitz of deregulation of the financial services industry, advocates fear. With weaker incentives to report fraud, regulators may have fewer allies as they monitor markets for the kind of bad behavior that can follow such loosening of rules.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

” The SEC declined to comment. Defenders of the SEC\u2019s action point out that the rule also contained some provisions that are good for whistleblowers, such as the ability to more quickly dismiss frivolous complaints that gum up the system and a new presumption that whistleblowers who help the commission attain settlements worth less than $5 million should get the maximum allowable award. Also, fiscal year 2020 saw the highest payouts in the program\u2019s history and the most claims processed overall.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The commission weakened the law in other ways, too, making it harder for whistleblowers to get a bounty if they did not have inside information but instead provided analysis that SEC staff members could plausibly have inferred on their own \u2014 even if the staff hadn\u2019t done so.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The financial adviser who blew the whistle on his firm says the new rules will surely dissuade some insiders at his level from stepping forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf these guys decide they want to lower their awards, they\u2019re going to get $200,000 employees taking a shot, and that\u2019s about it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only people who know stuff are the people who are at the top.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“\u201cI appreciate the fact that the average guy on the street can\u2019t comprehend these numbers,\u201d he said. \u201cThat it would be offensive to a normal human being making normal money. Lots of people on Wall Street make $100 million every 10 years. They\u2019re not risking that for a million bucks.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/the-sec-undermined-a-powerful-weapon-against-white-collar-crime<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In a quiet vote on Sept. 23, the Republican-dominated SEC adopted amendments that could allow it to lower payments to whistleblowers. Its argument is that awards should only be as large as necessary to prompt people to come forward, and excessively high payouts might be better spent on other priorities.<\/p>\n

Advocates say that may dissuade whistleblowers, insulating the biggest Wall Street banks and investment firms, which are typically subject to the largest fines and whose wrongdoing is often the most difficult to spot without help from highly paid insiders.<\/p>\n

The SEC\u2019s shift may exacerbate the effects of the Trump administration\u2019s blitz of deregulation of the financial services industry, advocates fear. With weaker incentives to report fraud, regulators may have fewer allies as they monitor markets for the kind of bad behavior that can follow such loosening of rules.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

” The SEC declined to comment. Defenders of the SEC\u2019s action point out that the rule also contained some provisions that are good for whistleblowers, such as the ability to more quickly dismiss frivolous complaints that gum up the system and a new presumption that whistleblowers who help the commission attain settlements worth less than $5 million should get the maximum allowable award. Also, fiscal year 2020 saw the highest payouts in the program\u2019s history and the most claims processed overall.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The commission weakened the law in other ways, too, making it harder for whistleblowers to get a bounty if they did not have inside information but instead provided analysis that SEC staff members could plausibly have inferred on their own \u2014 even if the staff hadn\u2019t done so.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The financial adviser who blew the whistle on his firm says the new rules will surely dissuade some insiders at his level from stepping forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these guys decide they want to lower their awards, they\u2019re going to get $200,000 employees taking a shot, and that\u2019s about it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only people who know stuff are the people who are at the top.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“\u201cI appreciate the fact that the average guy on the street can\u2019t comprehend these numbers,\u201d he said. \u201cThat it would be offensive to a normal human being making normal money. Lots of people on Wall Street make $100 million every 10 years. They\u2019re not risking that for a million bucks.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[617,167,1188,651],"class_list":["post-4500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-bureaucracy","tag-government","tag-sec","tag-whistleblower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4501,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions\/4501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}