The new law will allow whistleblowers who bring "original information" to the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to remain anonymous— even to the government. Working with an attorney as an intermediary, insiders with information about fraud can bring allegations to the government without fear that the government will somehow reveal their identity.
The new provision comes into law even as the SEC has become more aggressive in awarding tipsters.
On July 23, the commission announced the award of $1 million to Glen Kaiser and Karen Kaiser of Southbury, Conn., who provided information and documents that were crucial to the SEC's insider trading case against Pequot Capital. That award, which was the largest paid by the SEC for information in an insider trading case, was paid out under earlier authority.
Experts familiar with the new Dodd-Frank provisions expect that the dollar awards paid to informants in insider trading, securities and commodities fraud cases will grow much higher than $1 million.