Dec. 15, 2010 - Whistleblower attorney Eric R. Havian of Phillips & Cohen LLP says in an opinion piece published today that the Securities and Exchange Commission should rely on the nation's experience with qui tam cases and the Internal Revenue Service's whistleblower reward program rather than corporate lobbyists to structure the SEC whistleblower reward program.
"History shows that properly implemented whistleblower programs can return billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains to the Treasury and deter the loss of billions more, but also that whistleblower programs can be stifled by restrictive practices and interpretations of the law by entrenched bureaucrats," Havian says in the opinion piece published by Truthout.org on proposed rules for the SEC whistleblower reward program.
In the article, which is entitled "The SEC Whistleblower Program: How to Avoid Killing a Good Idea," Havian says, "The targets of the [Frank-Dodd] legislation and their attorneys are once again warning about dire consequences unless the SEC creates onerous regulations that would effectively discourage whistleblowers from coming forward."
The comment period on the SEC's proposed rules for the SEC whistleblower reward program ends Dec. 17.
