For the past several years, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Whistleblower Program has faced a funding crisis. An emergency fix passed by Congress in 2021 is set to expire at the end of September and the hugely successful program is in danger of collapsing. Whistleblower advocates are calling on Congress to act immediately and pass another emergency fix to save the program.
The CFTC Whistleblower Program, which offers monetary awards and anti-retaliation protections to whistleblowers, has allowed the CFTC to recover over $3.2 billion from fraudsters since it was established in 2010. It has correspondingly awarded over $370 million to qualified whistleblowers. According to the CFTC, approximately 30% of all the agency’s enforcement actions involve whistleblowers.
The program is in danger of being a victim of its own success, however. When it established the program, Congress placed a $100 million cap on the fund used to finance the CFTC Whistleblower Office and pay out whistleblower awards. This fund is entirely financed by sanctions collected through the program, but any sanctions that would exceed the cap are instead placed into the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s general fund.
Thus, while the program has collected billions of sanctions, only a small percentage of that is placed into the fund. And large sanctions also mean large awards (whistleblowers are eligible for awards of 10-30% of the sanctions collected in the action aided by the disclosure). Due to the cap on the fund, large awards therefore threaten to completely deplete the fund.
In 2021, Congress passed an emergency short-term fix to save the program from collapse by creating a separate fund to finance the CFTC Whistleblower Office. This ensured that even if large awards depleted the fund, the Office could continue to function.
This emergency fix is set to expire at the end of September, which would leave the CFTC Whistleblower Program in danger of financial collapse.
National Whistleblower Center (NWC) is calling on Congress to immediately pass emergency legislation to extend the separate funding for the CFTC Whistleblower Office in order to ensure this vital program does not become a victim of its own success.
NWC has set up an Action Alert allowing whistleblower supporters to write to their members of Congress calling for immediate action on the issue.
Join NWC in Taking Action:
Save the CFTC Whistleblower Program from Financial Collapse