Last week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it has granted at least 15 financial awards to whistleblowers this year — five awards granted on June 1st totaling $8 million and another 10 awards issued between July and mid-September totaling over $150 million. Prior to this announcement, the CFTC had granted only a handful of small awards since Chairman Selig’s appointment in December 2025.
The CFTC is an independent agency with regulatory authority over futures trading subject to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). The CEA governs a wide range of commodities, including agricultural products, crude oil, and financial instruments, as well as the trillion-dollar swaps market. The CFTC’s Whistleblower Program was established in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The program issues rewards to eligible whistleblowers, usually between 10 and 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected. The Commission pays the rewards from its Customer Protection Fund, with proceeds collected from monetary sanctions imposed on violators of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). The CEA also provides some confidentiality protections for whistleblowers. Whether or not the CFTC issues an award, the Commission does not disclose the specific enforcement action.
Notably, one of the awards featured in the announcement contains the Commission’s first use of Rule 165.9(a)(5) to reduce an award amount. The rule allows the Commission to consider “potential adverse incentives from oversize awards” when determining the award amount. 17 C.F.R. § 165.9(a)(5). In CFTC Whistleblower Award Determination No. 26-WB-25 (September 11, 2026), the Commission reduced the award because it determined that past large awards resulted in frivolous TCR filings and award applications with the CFTC that were a drain on resources. The Commission does not explain how it arrived at the reduction or the actual amounts involved in this case. It also notes only a few examples of past matters that it deemed frivolous. It is worth noting that the CFTC amended its rules to deal with frivolous claims by creating a separate, summary proceeding for low-quality award applications, see CFTC Rule 165.7(e), so the application of 165.9(a)(5) to discourage frivolous claims seems unnecessary. It also puts the CFTC in stark contrast to the SEC, which amended SEC Rule 21F-6 in 2022 to affirm the Commission’s authority to consider the dollar amount of a potential award only for the limited purpose of increasing the award amount.
Since its inception, the CFTC Whistleblower Office has awarded more than $580 million to whistleblowers associated with successful enforcement actions and is responsible for more than $5.1 billion in monetary sanctions.
The CFTC’s Director of the Division of Enforcement, David Miller, praised the recent awards, saying, “Awards such as these incentivize others to come forward with information about misconduct in our markets, which in turn contributes to the success of our enforcement program.” The $150 million in awards from July to mid-September represents a fifth of the $580 million total the Commission has handed out since 2014.
“The number and size of these awards demonstrate that the Commission is committed to rewarding whistleblowers who play a critical role in the Commission’s efforts to deter and prevent disruptions to our markets,” added Raagnee Beri, the Director of the CFTC Whistleblower Office.
The CFTC’s announcement of the large awards followed last week’s announcement that the Commission approved a final rule that incorporates a 30 percent presumption for whistleblower awards of $5 million or less. Financial rewards are subject to the CFTC’s discretion and an analysis of relevant regulatory factors.
The new rule was modeled after the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Rule 21F-6(c) to harmonize efforts between the two agencies’ whistleblower programs. According to the Commission’s announcement, the CFTC hopes the new rule will “improve the efficiency, transparency, and predictability” of whistleblower award claims. The rule will become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.
“The Whistleblower Program plays an important role in supporting the Commission’s enforcement program,” said Raagnee Beri, Director of the CFTC Whistleblower Office. “This final rule will protect and enhance the program’s effectiveness and further incentivize whistleblowers to report.”
Whistleblowers with inside knowledge are the best way to uncover hard-to-detect fraud, and Phillips & Cohen is the leading whistleblower law firm with the most awards under the CFTC and the SEC whistleblower programs. The firm’s roster includes a former Director of the CFTC’s Whistleblower Office, Christopher Ehrman, Sean X. McKessy, the first Chief of the SEC Office of the Whistleblower and principal architect of the SEC whistleblower program, Erika Kelton, the attorney with the most awards under the CFTC and SEC whistleblower programs, and numerous other experienced CFTC and SEC whistleblower program attorneys. If you believe you know of violations of the CEA or other financial fraud, contact Phillips & Cohen for a free, confidential review of your case.