The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that the SEC's approval today of a rule to award whistleblowers a bounty, under a Dodd-Frank Act provision, will derail corporate compliance programs, since the final rule does not require the whistleblower to report the tip to the company, in addition to regulators.

The whistleblower rule will “undermine” companies' compliance systems that address whistleblowers set up under the Sarbanes Oxley Act, therefore making it “harder and slower to detect and stop corporate fraud,” the Chamber said in a statement today. “In approving this new whistleblower rule, the SEC has chosen to put trial lawyer profits ahead of effective compliance and corporate governance,” according to the document.

“Not informing the company of a potential fraud and waiting for the SEC to act is the equivalent of not calling the firefighters down the street to put out a raging fire and instead calling the lawyers from the next town to sue over the fire instead,” according to the statement.

Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement would not comment on the Chamber's criticism today when they were asked about the statement by members of the press, following today's open meeting.

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