Spencer Platt/Getty Images
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission awarded $200 million to a single whistleblower.
- The CFTC said the award represented the biggest payment ever to a single whistleblower.
- "The whistleblower's information led the CFTC to important, direct evidence of wrongdoing," the regulator said.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Thursday that it just awarded $200 million to a single whistleblower.
The payment represents the largest award ever to a single individual since the CFTC started its whistleblower program in 2014 under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
The whistleblower's "timely original information significantly contributed to an already open investigation and led to a successful enforcement action, as well as to the success of two related actions, by a US federal regulator and a foreign regulator," the CFTC said.
Since the start of the program, the regulator has paid more than $3 billion in whistleblower awards.
To qualify for a potential monetary award, a whistleblower that significantly contributes to the success of an enforcement action must demonstrate that there is a "meaningful nexus" between the information provided and the CFTC's ability to successfully complete its investigation, and to either obtain a settlement or prevail in litigation.
A whistleblower that qualifies for an award is eligible to receive between 10% and 30% of monetary sanctions collected from the investigation. That means this whistleblower's information led to monetary sanctions of at least $670 million and up to $2 billion.
The whistleblower award is paid from the CFTC Customer Protection Fund, which is entirely financed by monetary sanctions paid to the CFTC by violators of the Commodity Exchange Act.
The CFTC did not identify the specific case the whistleblower aided in order to protect the identify of the individual.