CFTC Whistleblower Awards Continue at Brisk Pace

The whistleblower program of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has recently handed out several awards, continuing a recent trend of awards coming from the commission at a fast pace.

The CFTC most recently announced a $2 million award to a pair of whistleblowers whose information through multiple interviews and provided documents allowed a significant enforcement action. Earlier this summer, the agency announced it was awarding a whistleblower $2.5 million in a commodities case, and there was a $1.5 million award handed down in May. From the first award in 2014 through the end of 2018, the agency had awarded a total of $87 million.

2018 was the largest year ever for the CFTC’s whistleblower program. After a few years of relatively little activity, it exploded for five v, accounting for the majority of the CFTC awards issued to date. The largest was a record $30 million settlement against JPMorgan.

Handling a wide variety of claims

The claims handled by the CFTC whistleblower program cover a wide range of case types. The agency since its inception has received complaints about disruptive trading, wash trading, market manipulation, misrepresentation to customers, false reporting, fraud involving precious metals and currencies and a broad range of Ponzi schemes.

The CFTC program was established under the Dodd-Frankl Wall Street Reform act of 2010. All CFTC whistleblowers have their anonymity protected after they report their information. They can receive 10 to 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected if the value of those sanctions exceeds $1 million.

To learn more about how to file a CFTC whistleblower claim, consult an experienced whistleblower lawyer with Kardell Law Group today.