WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is pushing nominees
to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to commit to supporting
a highly successful whistleblower program at risk of collapsing under the
weight of its own successes.
“Because of its great success, the whistleblower
fund is at risk of being depleted. The increasing size and quantity of fines
arising from successful whistleblower disclosures have led to larger reward
disbursements. Current law requires that the whistleblower fund be capped at
$100 million, and any fines collected past the cap are remitted to the
Treasury’s general fund. The disbursement of larger rewards from a capped fund
poses an impending threat to the CFTC whistleblower program’s ability to function,”
Grassley wrote in letters to three CFTC
nominees.
Created in 2010,
the CFTC whistleblower program distributes monetary awards to whistleblowers
whose disclosures shine a light on misconduct in the financial sector. Awards
are derived from fines and sanctions collected from violators of financial
regulations, and the program carries no costs for taxpayers. In FY2020 alone,
the office awarded nearly $20 million to whistleblowers. As award values grow,
the program could be forced to
make payouts that exceed the fund’s
balance, which is capped
at $100 million. Earlier this year,
Congress passed Grassley’s CFTC Fund Management Act
to make temporary changes to the program, allowing it to continue functioning
in the event that the award fund is depleted before it can be replenished.
In letters to three CFTC commissioner nominees,
Grassley again extolled the value of the program and sought commitments from
the nominees to permanently address the fund’s constraints.
Grassley’s letter to CFTC Nominees:
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