The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it will award more than $8 million to five whistleblowers who provided information that helped agency investigators recover funds for defrauded investors.
The Wall Street regulator didn’t identify the tipsters or the scheme they flagged, but said the individuals helped the agency complete a successful enforcement action.
“Whistleblowers like today’s awardees enable the CFTC to hold perpetrators of fraud to account and deter future wrongdoing in the markets the CFTC oversees,” David Miller, the agency’s enforcement director, said Monday in a statement.
Established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the CFTC’s whistleblower program aims to root out market problems by encouraging individuals to share original, timely information that helps the agency identify alleged wrongdoers. Tipsters may be eligible for awards, which can range from 10% to 30% of monetary sanctions collected.
The agency has awarded more than $430 million to whistleblowers since 2014, stemming from enforcement actions that resulted in more than $3.7 billion in monetary sanctions, the CFTC said Monday.
