SEC Whistleblower Lawyer
Could your knowledge of securities fraud result in a large cash award? Get a confidential SEC tip evaluation from whistleblower lawyer.
Do you have info about federal securities law violations? You could win a financial award. You can submit an anonymous tip. An SEC whistleblower lawyer can help protect you from reprisal. That’s thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act’s SEC Whistleblower Reward Program.
Meissner Associates is responsible for the second-largest whistleblower award paid paid out by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to date: $22.4 million. When you submit your tip to us, everything stays confidential. You’ll get an honest answer about the strength of your info. You’ll also learn what to expect next.
How Strong Is Your SEC Whistleblower Tip?
Want money for your info? Your whistleblower tip needs to meet several criteria laid out by the SEC:
- Be Voluntary – Your tip must be willingly submitted. It can’t be the result of a request or demand made by the SEC or another body. It can’t be related to a congressional, federal, state, or regulatory case. And it can’t be submitted in the course of a legal or contractual duty to the SEC.
- Be Original – Your tip must come from independent knowledge or analysis not publicly available. The SEC must also not already be aware of the information you are providing. This makes it critical to act on what you know as soon as possible. Otherwise, another whistleblower may submit the same info before you do.
- Be Actionable – You can’t receive an award unless the info you give is actionable. The SEC must be able to enforce sanctions as a direct result of your whistleblowing.
- More Than $1 Million – If the SEC sanctions recover more than $1 million, you’ll get a percentage of these funds.
It can be difficult for one person to know if their info will actually meet these criteria before submitting it to the SEC. This is why anonymity is so important. By submitting your confidential tip to a whistleblower lawyer, you can find out how likely your tip is to succeed at no risk to you.
Determining Your Whistleblower Financial Reward
Should the SEC collect monetary sanctions from the business or institution guilty of wrongdoing, the reward you receive will be somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of this total. The exact percentage you are awarded depends on variables regarding your tip and the actions you took prior to submitting it.
Among them is how helpful your info was to the SEC’s case. But any help you are able to give during the investigation can also increase your final award amount. For example, you may be able to interpret obscure data or explain how transactions took place. That helps the case. The SEC may reward you accordingly.
The SEC will also consider whether you first reported the wrongdoing internally. If you didn’t, this could limit the percentage they’ll award you. The SEC doesn’t want to encourage people to go around internal compliance programs. Weak internal controls are a problem.
Your award may also be limited if you were involved in the fraudulent activities or waited too long to blow the whistle. You could still recover a bounty in these scenarios, though. After evaluating your tip, a whistleblower lawyer from our firm can tell you.
What Is an SEC Securities Law Violation?
The securities industry and corporate finance are both complex. It’s not easy to identify crooked activity. However, there are several types that happen often.
If you can give evidence of any of the securities violations below, the SEC may reward you well:
- Insider trading
- Fraudulent or incomplete financial and corporate disclosures
- Foreign bribery
- Ponzi and pyramid schemes
- Undisclosed hacking
- Inadequate cybersecurity
- Accounting and auditing fraud
- Money laundering
- Stock mispricing and manipulation
- Embezzlement
- Unregistered securities
- Weak internal controls
These are just a few of the issues a whistleblower lawyer can help you report to recover a bounty for. These unlawful actions can happen in many industries, including finance, technologies, energy, and pharmaceuticals. Have you already reported what you know to the company’s internal compliance program, and nothing has changed? Then it’s time to act. Delaying could reduce the amount you’re awarded.
Whistleblowers Are Protected from Retaliation
Both the Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley Acts protect whistleblowers from retaliation. You cannot be fired, demoted, harassed, or threatened for helping the SEC enforce securities laws. If your employer does attempt to punish you, you could then be eligible for reinstatement, double back pay, and compensation for the cost of litigating the retaliation.
A whistleblower lawyer from Meissner Associates will defend you from any action filed against you in New York by the target of an SEC investigation. This is at no extra cost to you. You deserve to be protected.
SEC Whistleblower FAQ
Becoming an SEC whistleblower is a big decision. You probably have questions you want answered, so we’ve provided info about some common concerns.
Will my identity become public if my whistleblower tip results in an SEC investigation?
In most situations, your identity will only be made public if you choose to make it so. The SEC will eventually need to know who you are in order to pay your reward. Your whistleblower lawyer will guide you.
Can I be a whistleblower if I am the attorney of the company guilty of securities violations?
In most cases, the info you have will be governed by attorney-client privilege and be ineligible for a reward. However, there are a few circumstances that might allow you to submit a successful tip. We can determine this during your tip evaluation.
Once I submit a whistleblower tip to the SEC, how long will it be before I receive my award?
This can widely vary, as the SEC doesn’t have enough resources to fully investigate every tip it receives. The more effective your info is at grabbing the enforcement office’s attention, the more likely that your tip will be acted on. A lawyer can make sure your tip maximizes attention.
Submit Your SEC Whistleblower Tip for a Confidential Evaluation
Meissner Associates understands that submitting a tip to the SEC is a big step to take. When you submit a tip to our firm, the evaluation is free. It’s also completely confidential so there’s no risk on your end. You’ll get an honest assessment of how strong your information is and how likely the SEC is to act.
The longer you wait, the less money you might be eligible to receive. Submit your tip for a free and confidential evaluation by an experienced SEC whistleblower lawyer. Simply complete the form on this page or call us at 1-866-764-3100.