SEC Cancels Vote on Controversial Changes to Whistleblower Program

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that it canceled its meeting to vote on proposed rule changes to its whistleblower program. According to the SEC’s open meeting website, the meeting, previously scheduled for October 23rd, is “Cancelled.” It is reported that the meeting will be rescheduled for November.

SEC Whistleblower lawyer Stephen M. Kohn, a founding partner at Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto and Chairman of the Board of the National Whistleblower Center, is leading efforts to convince the SEC Commissioners to reject all of the anti-whistleblower proposals. Over the past two weeks, Mr. Kohn, representatives from the National Whistleblower Center and Sherron Watkins, the ENRON whistleblower, met with all of the Commissioners and/or their staff to discuss the importance of the rule changes, and how they may impact whistleblowers and enforcement.

Mr. Kohn made the following statement:

“This is good news for whistleblowers. The proposed rule changes could undermine the highly successful SEC Whistleblower Program. At stake is the future of the SEC’s ability to effectively use whistleblowers to police securities fraud and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We welcome the postponement of the October 23rd meeting. It is vitally important that the SEC understands all of the issues and gets this rulemaking right.”

Read more:

List of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto’s letters to the Commission regarding proposed changes to the Dodd-Frank Act whistleblower award program:

Supplemental Comment: Proposed Rule 21F-9(e) filed on October 16, 2019

Supplemental Comment: Proposed Rule 21F-9(e) filed on October 8, 2019

Dodd-Frank Act Whistleblower Comment filed on May 6, 2019

Dodd-Frank Act Whistleblower Comment filed on September 12, 2019

Dodd-Frank Act Whistleblower Comment filed on July 24, 2018

The SEC’s website discussing the Proposed Rules is linked here: Proposed Rule: Amendments to the Commission’s Whistleblower Program Rules