The Ethics Research Council’s 2011 National Business Ethics Survey® found that 45 percent of U.S. employees saw some kind of ethics or law violation at work, and 65% of those employees reported it.  Yet, one in five of those whistleblowers felt some retaliation as a result.

Keeping the flow of information going requires protection for whistleblowers. 

That’s part of what The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, more commonly known as Dodd-Frank, is designed to do. The mammoth piece of federal legislation mandates many things, including enabling employees of publicly-traded companies to report “original information” on fraud, waste and abuse to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Whistleblowers can receive between 10 and 30% of monetary sanctions resulting from law enforcement actions recovering more than $1 million.

The goal is to uncover incidences of securities fraud, including stock price or volume manipulation, theft and bribery, misreporting of financials, billing irregularities and insider trading.

Having a company-sponsored mechanism for learning about potential violations of securities law and other fraud and personnel issues can help you identify problems early and address them internally, before they’re reported to the SEC. Read our blog post, Handling Fraud Hotline Reports, for more on this topic.

Contact us to discuss your organization’s needs.

For more on Dodd-Frank, see this related content:

• The SEC’s Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program page
• Dodd-Frank Whistleblower awards