On Monday (September 23), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced four whistleblower awards under the CFTCs Whistleblower Program. They are the latest in a string of awards — all relatively modest — the commodities regulator has made since the Spring. This includes awards made on August 30 ($4 million); August 8 ($1M); June 17 ($8M); June 3 ($4.5M); and March 14 ($1.25M).

The awards this week are also relatively small, collectively totaling only about $4.5 million. All the awards this year, are a far cry from some of the more sizeable whistleblower awards the CFTC has made in the past, such as the record-breaking $200 million award in October 2021 to the LIBOR benchmark manipulation whistleblower.

Nevertheless, as the CFTC highlighted in its press release, there are several features of this week’s awards that make them especially notable:

The four orders granting the awards to seven whistleblowers are the most awards the CFTC has issued on a single day.
The CFTC has issued 12 orders granting whistleblower awards this fiscal year, the most under the program.
Six of the seven whistleblowers were not true insiders with first-hand knowledge of the fraud through their work at the offending companies. Instead, five of them were victims of the fraud and the sixth was a market participant.
The seventh whistleblower was a company insider with compliance/internal audit responsibilities, who first reported the violations internally and then — as required under the CFTC’s safe harbor provision — waited at least 120 days before contacting the CFTC after the company took no action to address the wrongdoing. This is only the second time the CFTC has made an award to a compliance officer under the safe harbor provision (following its first such award in March).

The CFTC highlighted all this to stress that anyone can be a whistleblower and to encourage future whistleblowers to come forward. As CFTC Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley said:

Whistleblowers provide information from a variety of vantage points that helps preserve market integrity and fairness. The multiple awards the CFTC is granting today serve as a warning to would-be wrongdoers across the markets we oversee that anyone may blow the whistle on their misconduct.

CFTC Whistleblower Chief Brian Young was even more direct on this point: “Today’s awards illustrate the CFTC’s Whistleblower Program is open to nearly anyone who voluntarily provides original information about a violation, including victims, witnesses, insiders, market participants, and employees.”

The CFTC provided no other details about the awards, the whistleblowers who received them, or the underlying enforcement actions for which the whistleblowers were rewarded. The CFTC never provides this information, maintaining its commitment to strictly maintain the confidentiality of its whistleblowers.

So if you have information concerning possible commodities violations, the CFTC continues to make it very clear that it wants to hear from you. In the words of Mr. Young, “our Whistleblower Program remains committed to rewarding meritorious whistleblowers expeditiously for their information and assistance.”

If you would like more information on what it means to be a whistleblower, under the CFTC program or the many other whistleblower rewards programs, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will connect you with an experienced member of our whistleblower team for a free and confidential consultation.

Read CFTC Makes Four Whistleblower Awards — Relatively Small But Notable at constantinecannon.com