The Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded more than $4.5 million to a whistleblower whose tip triggered the company to review the allegations as part of an internal investigation and subsequently report the whistleblower’s allegations to the SEC and another agency.

According to the SEC order, the whistleblower sent an anonymous tip to the company alleging significant wrongdoing and submitted the same information to the SEC within 120 days of reporting it to the company. This information prompted the company to review the whistleblower’s allegations of misconduct and led the company to report the allegations to the SEC and the other agency. As a result of the company’s self-report, the SEC opened its own investigation into the alleged misconduct.

Ultimately, when the company completed its internal investigation, the results were reported to the SEC and the other agency. According to the SEC, “this is the first time a claimant is being awarded under this provision of the whistleblower rules, which was designed to incentivize internal reporting by whistleblowers who also report to the SEC within 120 days.”

“In this case, the whistleblower was credited with the results of the company’s internal investigation, which were reported to the SEC by the company and led to the Commission’s resulting enforcement action and the related action,” Jane Norberg, chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, said in a statement. “The whistleblower gets credit for the company’s internal investigation because the allegations were reported to the Commission within 120 days of the report to the company.”

The SEC has now awarded approximately $381 million to 62 individuals since issuing its first award in 2012.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal, enforcement, technology, and more.

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