Sep. 18, 2018
To the SEC: As a member of the investing public, I would like to reemphasize the entirety of the SEC Whistleblower rule comments (File number S7-16-18) given in Jane Turner's, September 17, 2018, letter to the SEC. Please do not end the rule comment period while the lobbying of the Chamber of Commerce remains concealed from the public. It also should be noted that the mortgage markets, and the world's 2 largest financial markets, Libor and Foreign Exchange, have each generated financial penalties of several billion dollars within the last 6 years. Any whistleblower awards in the markets just listed would have easily eclipsed $100 million dollars. But there have been no awards in those amounts. The SEC has not introduced policies liberal enough to induce whistleblowers to come forward in the largest financial markets. The SEC should introduce larger whistleblower awards, and greater whistleblower protections, until these largest financial markets also receive the benefits of increased transparency, and therefore better serve the public. In addition, I do not believe the SEC should cite the interests of the public in attempting to "cap" the largest whistleblower awards. A whistleblower award of, say, $500 million dollars would generate worldwide interest. Within 10 years of such an award, we'd have vastly improved capital markets, and just as importantly, vastly improved public confidence in our capital markets. In 10 years, under the foregoing circumstances, the suggestion of an enormous financial fraud might be met with skepticism, and perhaps the comment "No fraud that large could happen. Someone would have turned it in to the SEC for the whistleblower award". I believe that's the world we should aspire to in the future. Anonymous