On April 4, 2016, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced the issuance of a whistleblower award of more than $10 million for original information that it said led to a major enforcement action over violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”). This was just the third whistleblowing award issued under the CFTC’s whistleblower program and it represents a significant increase over the previous two awards (for approximately $240,000 and $290,000, respectively). The award is also the first following the disclosure in December 2015 by the CFTC’s Inspector General of his review of the CFTC’s whistleblowing office over the limited number of awards issued when compared to a similar whistleblowing program by the SEC, likely a sign of things to come.
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