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ARTICLE · 13 DECEMBER 2021

CFTC Announces Record-breaking Whistleblower Award: Does It Raise The Bar For Incentivizing Whistleblowing?

Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the CFTC) recently made history by announcing the largest payout ever given to a single whistleblower under the Dodd-Frank Program - nearly USD$200 million.

CanadaFinance and Banking
Lawrence Ritchie
Lawrence Ritchie
Lipi Mishra
Lipi Mishra
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Introduction

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the CFTC) recently made history by announcing the largest payout ever given to a single whistleblower under the Dodd-Frank Program - nearly USD$200 million. The whistleblower provided information that helped U.S. and U.K. regulators investigate the alleged manipulation of global interest-rate benchmarks. These investigations ultimately led to USD$2.5 billion in settlements with Deutsche Bank in 2015, including USD$800 million with the CFTC. This whistleblower award is intended to send a powerful message to businesses involved in improper and non-compliant activities: employees can, and are, incentivized to report wrongdoing to regulators, and those incentives work (especially when the incentive takes the form of a multi-million dollar payout).

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