In a “vote split along partisan lines” (not surprisingly) the SEC voted on final rules to reward whistle-blowers in cases of illegal financial activities. It was clear that some sort of official method for dealing with these cases was necessary when even parties that did report questionable behavior on the part of large financial institutions were ignored and in some cases even fired. The business community apparently argued that it should be necessary to report incidents internally before going directly to the SEC, but fear of internal retribution would, in my opinion, prevent many would-be whistle-blowers from reporting misdeeds. On the other hand, it is distinctly possible that people will simply find ways to manipulate the new regulations to collect on rewards. Do you think the new system will be more successful in finding and rooting out corruption on Wall Street?
atyp1cal
The Lamplighter
First Time Blogger, Long Time Reader
John Galt
maceaver
Vade Mecum
Kate Chopin
L.B. Jeffries
Elspeth Reoch
I think protecting whistle-blowers is essential. This was an interesting compromise that incentivizes people to go to their companies first, rather than directly to the SEC. There’s no real penalty to going to the SEC first, but a lower potential windfall. That seems like complete BS though when SEC Commissioner, Kathleen Casey, said, “By diverting a large portion of the flow of information, it impairs a company’s ability to step in,” she said. Because SEC investigations tend to be “more ponderous and time consuming,” the result may be to “permit violations to last longer and be more serious.” That’s just ridiculous. Especially now that people are paid to go internally first. Silly GOP, don’t you know that we see right through your efforts to protect business at all costs?