Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act, the landmark financial-reform legislation passed in the wake of the Great Recession. What we’ve learned during this time is that there’s strong consensus that the whistleblower-rewards provisions are effective in detecting and combatting fraud and conserving limited public resources.
Using financial incentives to motivate potential whistleblowers to take the risk of coming forward has strengthened not only Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement, but also corporate-compliance programs. While both the SEC and corporate-compliance programs could do better in investigating and remedying the issues raised by whistleblowers, the SEC whistleblower program is an effective model that should be used by other enforcement agencies.
