With a large potential payout on the horizon for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Senate reached a bipartisan agreement to pass a bill that temporarily creates a separate account to pay for the agency’s whistleblower program, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“The CFTC whistleblower program has become far more successful than Congress imagined when we set it up back in 2010. Some awards distributed to whistleblowers have grown to the point that they risk wiping out the award fund before it can be replenished, sidelining program staff and operations in the process.” Grassley told reporters.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that the CFTC has been in hazardous territory in recent months over a potential whistleblower payout exceeding $100 million to a former Deutsche Bank AG executive. Leaders of the CFTC have voiced their concerns over the lacking mechanisms to pay the bank executive and continue to fund the whistleblower program.
The Customer Protection Fund can only be replenished if it falls below $100 million. If the fund is depleted, the CFTC runs the risk of being temporarily sidelined. This new bill would allow the CFTC to transfer $10 million to another account and use that account to pay for its operating and programming expenses, allowing for the fund to be replenished. After October 1, 2022, the remaining money from the account will be transferred back to the fund.
The CFTC’s whistleblower program was created under Section 278 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The CFTC has awarded $123 million to whistleblowers since its first award in 2014, with the actions related to those rewards having resulted in monetary relief totaling more than $1 billion. 