2011: A Great Year for Whistleblowers
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has offered awards totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to employee whistleblowers who reported wrongdoing at their companies. Based on these whistleblowers' information, 220 companies were brought to justice in 2011. The employee reports resulted in the federal government's recovery of billions of dollars. These reports had been made over the past few years to the SEC and the companies' internal compliance programs.
The list of companies forced to repay the federal government is an impressive one. It includes Dell Inc., Qwest Communications, Citigroup, UBS Financial Services, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan, Deloitte and Touché, and General Electric Company.
