The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is poised to walk back a proposal to impose discretionary caps on whistleblower awards and tighten deadlines for formally filing tips when it votes to overhaul the bounty program this week, Reuters reported. The SEC today will finalize changes to its whistleblower program, but will water down these proposed measures after whistleblower advocates, lawyers and lawmakers said the changes could deter insiders from flagging corporate fraud and misconduct. In 2018, the SEC proposed here reworking the program which allows the SEC to reward tipsters whose original information leads to a penalty exceeding $1 million with between 10 percent and 30 percent of the fine. Created in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis, the program has resulted in more than $2 billion in penalties and $523 million in tipster rewards. The program attracts thousands of tips annually, public data shows, overwhelming SEC staff who can take years to assess all the claims and issue awards. SEC chair Jay Clayton has said he views the program as vital, but wants to make it more efficient and speed up awards. The SEC proposed, among other measures, giving staff more latitude when assessing the value of awards and the discretion to reduce some payouts if they exceeded $30 million.
