The novel coronavirus outbreak and economic fallout is proving to be a bonanza for whistleblower lawyers as the U.S. securities regulator cracks down on a range of related misconduct from companies touting sham cures to misuse of federal aid, Reuters reported. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fielded about 4,000 complaints from mid-March to mid-May, a 35 percent increase on the year-ago period, Steven Peikin, the agency’s co-head of enforcement, said this month as cases of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, shot up. Two factors appear to be driving the current surge in tips, according to lawyers: the sheer scale of the crisis has sparked a wave of misconduct across all areas of the SEC’s remit, and mass unemployment has unleashed whistleblowers who may otherwise have feared retaliation by their employers.
