SEC Receives Record Number of Whistleblower Tips

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received more than 18,000 tips from whistleblowers reporting violations of securities laws last year. As our chart based on SEC data shows, this is by far the highest number of tips since 2012. The SEC pays rewards to whistleblowers who make a decisive contribution to the discovery and prosecution of violations. In 2023, a record sum of $279 million was paid out to an anonymous whistleblower. This is more than double the previous record amount of $114 million announced in October 2020.

The reward bonuses are likely to be an important building block for the success of the SEC's Office of the Whistleblower. The prerequisite for the payment of the bonuses is that the whistleblowers provide information that leads to an SEC enforcement case of more than one million dollars. The whistleblower law in the USA was created, among other things, after the exposure of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme during the 2008 financial crisis. Since its launch in 2011, the SEC says it has paid out more than $1 billion to whistleblowers. In turn, whistleblowers' information has helped criminals to repay more than $4 billion in illegally obtained profits and interest.