The SEC’s whistleblower office, mandated by Dodd-Frank, has gotten a considerable amount of press here and elsewhere. Not as well known, however, is the fact that Dodd-Frank also required the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to create a whistleblower office, and that office got on its feet today with the announcement that the CFTC has hired its first director.

via CFTC\’s New Whistleblower Office Hires First Director – Compliance Week.

It’s imperative that the SEC fill the jobs before the end of the fiscal year in September, Enforcement Division head Robert Khuzami told a securities law conference earlier this month. The agency got a $70 million bump in funding which will go toward new hires, “but we only have five months to do it,” he said. “All of a sudden we have to push through a lot of hires, because if we don’t spend the money by the end of the fiscal year, it’s gone.”

Read more: With Glut of Vacant Jobs, SEC Turns to Headhunter for Help — Blog of the Legal Times

Following criticism of SIPC for trying to “claw back” ill-gotten gains from investors who profited from Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme (in order to redistribute the funds to investors who lost money), US Reps. Gary Ackerman, Peter King and four other Congressmen have presented a bill that would bar such claw backs. The bill would retroactively allow hundreds of Madoff victims to resist SIPC’s efforts to recover their profits, the New York Post reports.

The bill would also require SIPC to provide up to $100,000 in insurance coverage to investors who invest in Ponzi schemes indirectly, such as through funds of hedge funds. Currently, SIPC insurance covers up to $500,000 for investors who invested directly in a scheme.

Read the New York Post article

In the 2008 release, the SEC cautioned that companies could only use their websites for such disclosure if their websites were a “recognized channel” for investors, according to the IR Web Report. The release also gave a list of non-exclusive factors for companies to consider when evaluating whether their websites and their investors were ready for web-based disclosure.

Read the IR Web Report post

The Washington Post reports that this idea comes on the heels of harsh criticism regarding the agency’s handling of the Bank of America settlement. Enforcement Director Rob Khuzami told the Washington Post that “[t]ypically our practice has been not to file in-depth factual findings of the investigation. We’re taking a look at the practice and deciding whether it makes sense to provide a more fulsome record” in an effort to be more transparent.

Some supporters of the idea such as Columbia University law professor John Coffee say that the current SEC settlement document is an “artifact” as “the SEC is premised on the idea that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and a nontransparent settlement harms the SEC’s reputation.”

Some lawyers like Russell G. Ryan of King & Spalding say, however, that inserting more details in settlements might make companies more reluctant to agree to a settlement.

Read the Washington Post article

The case is set to go to trial next week in federal court in New York, and has sparked a broader debate as to whether the SEC has jurisdiction to pursue it at all. Full details are available in this post on my Enforcement Action blog over at Compliance Week.

Wilson worked as the operations manager for Alberta Clipper Energy Inc.  He admitted to purchasing shares of the company in 2006, after learning of nonpublic drilling results. He also admitted that after the information was made public, he sold the shares to make a profit of approximately $29,400.

Read the press release

According to the Miami Herald, Breuer cited the success of the court-authorized wiretaps and confidential sources used in the Galleon case. He also noted the FBI sting operation that resulted in the indictment of 22 executives and employees who work for suppliers to military and law-enforcement agencies. This case was the largest prosecution of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to date. Breuer said these undercover operations are a “new chapter in white collar crime enforcement.”

Read the Miami Herald article