Securities And Exchange Commission Bans Aspiring Whistleblower For Being A Pain In The Ass

As many of you know, in 2010, the SEC created a whistleblower program wherein a person who "comes forward with high-quality original information that leads to a Commission enforcement action in which over $1,000,000 in sanctions is ordered" can collect a nice little payout (awards range from 10-30% of the total collected). So you can't really blamed the unnamed man or woman who submitted 196 applications1 for awards over the last 3.5 years in an attempt to win a nice li'l finder's fee for him/herself, but the SEC can decide to make it official policy that any future cases submitted by this person shall be used for kindling, which it did last month.

The Securities and Exchange Commission in a sharply worded notice banned an anonymous individual from its whistleblower program because this person was submitting too many meritless applications for awards. The volume of this individual’s submissions “consumed significant staff resources” of the fledgling whistleblower program, which was established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Financial Reform act, the agency said. The “unceasing submission of baseless claims has harmed the rights of legitimate whistleblowers and hindered the Commission’s implementation of the whistleblower program…delaying the Commission’s ability to finalize meritorious awards to other claimants,” the agency said.

It's unclear when the last straw occurred, and this person, in the eyes of the SEC staff, went from "semi-amusing eccentric trying to make a buck" to "LEAVE US ALONE YOU CRAZY BITCH," but it may have been December 12, 2013, when he/she "submitted 21 claims for awards in a variety of cases."

SEC Bans Would-Be Whistleblower Over Annoying Filings [Risk and Compliance]

1. Assuming the thinking here was that it's all a numbers game, and one of them had to slip through the cracks eventually?↩