SEC Awards Foreign Whistleblower $30 Million. FULL TEXT ORDER ONLINE

2 We believe an award payment is appropriate here notwithstanding the existence of certain extraterritorial aspects of Claimant's application. See generally Morrison v. Nat'l Austl.Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247, 266 (2010) (discussing analytical framework for determining whether an application of a statutory provision that involves certain foreign aspects is an extraterritorial or domestic application of the provision; explaining that it is a domestic application of the provision if the particular aspect that is the "focus of congressional concern" has a sufficient U.S. territorial nexus); European Community v. RJR Nabisco, Inc., F.3d , 2014 WL 1613878, *10 (2d Cir. Apr. 23, 2014) (applying Morrison framework and finding that "[i]f domestic conduct satisfies every essential element to prove a violation of a United States statute that does not apply extraterritorially, that statute is violated even if some further conduct contributing to the violation occurred outside the United States."). In our view, there is a sufficient U.S. territorial nexus whenever a claimant's information leads to the successful enforcement of a covered action brought in the United States, concerning violations of the U.S. securities laws, by the Commission, the U.S. regulatory agency with enforcement authority for such violations. When these key territorial connections exist, it makes no difference whether, for example, the claimant was a foreign national, the claimant resides overseas, the information was submitted from overseas, or the misconduct comprising the U.S. securities law violation occurred entirely overseas. We believe this approach best effectuates the clear Congressional purpose underlyingthe award program, which was to further the effective enforcement of the U.S. securities laws by encouraging individuals with knowledge of violations of these U.S. laws to voluntarily provide that information to the Commission. See S. Rep. No. 111-176 at 110 (2010) ("to motivate those with inside knowledge to come forward and assist the Government to identify and prosecute persons who have violated the securities laws …."). Finally, although we recognize that the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held that there was an insufficient territorial nexus for the anti-retaliation protections of Section 21F(h) to apply to a foreign whistleblower who experienced employment retaliation overseas after making certain reports about his foreign employer, Liu v. Siemens, F.3d , 2014 WL 3953672 (2d Cir. Aug. 14, 2014), we do not find that decision controlling here; the whistleblower award provisions have a different Congressional focus than the anti-retaliation provisions, which are generally focused on preventing retaliatory employment actions and protecting the employment relationship.

• SEC
• Whistleblower
• Dodd Frank
• BrokeAndBroker
• Bill Singer