Bipartisan legislation reintroduced Thursday aims to bolster the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) whistleblower program.
The proposed legislation — which was co-sponsored by Republican senator Chuck Grassley and Democrat Elizabeth Warren — seeks to beef up anti-retaliation protections for whistleblowers; sets deadlines for the regulator to process claims and awards; and protects whistleblowers from waiving their rights through arbitration agreements.
The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) endorsed the proposed legislation, which, it said, would restore anti-retaliation protections for internal corporate whistleblowers. Their status was thrown into doubt by a 2018 court ruling, which found that whistleblowers must report directly to the SEC to qualify for anti-retaliation protections.
“The bipartisan SEC Whistleblower Reform Act offers simple fixes to three of the few shortcomings facing the otherwise immensely successful SEC whistleblower program,” said Andrew Feller, senior special counsel at Washington, DC-based law firm, Kohn, Kohn, and Colapinto LLP, in a release.
“Protecting whistleblowers from retaliation, incentivizing qualified whistleblowers with timely awards, and prohibiting companies from muzzling would-be-whistleblowers are the three core features of the SEC whistleblower program. The SEC Whistleblower Reform Act is a critically important piece of legislation because it bolsters all three,” Feller added.
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