Three whistleblowers helped an U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch brokerage.
On Monday, the SEC awarded one whistleblower more than $33 million, the largest bounty issued in the seven-year history of the agency’s program for rewarding tipsters for tipping off authorities about misconduct at Merrill Lynch. The other two whistleblowers will split $50 million for providing help in the same case. Total the three Merrill Lynch insiders will get more than $83 million from the SEC.
Reportedly, the three whistleblowers provided information that helped the SEC win a $415 million settlement with the bank in 2016 for engaging in complex transactions to reduce the amount of client funds that had to be set aside in reserve accounts.
” These awards demonstrate that whistleblowers can provide the SEC with incredibly significant information that enables us to pursue and remedy serious violations that might otherwise go unnoticed,” said Jane Norberg, chief of the SEC’s whistleblower office.” We hope that these awards encourage others with specific, high-quality information regarding securities laws violations to step forward and report it to the SEC.”
Whistleblowers can seek payouts if they voluntarily give the SEC unique information that leads to successful enforcement actions. Compensation can range from 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected in a case beyond $1 million. The SEC stated it has awarded more than $262 million since issuing its first award in 2012. The previous record for a single payment was $30 million.
