Law.com/Daily Business Review Profile Silver Law Group’s $1.8M SEC Whistleblower Award

Law.com and Daily Business Review interviewed Scott Silver, Silver Law Group’s managing partner, regarding a $1.8M SEC whistleblower award he helped secure for a client. The client provided crucial information that led the SEC to recover millions of dollars for investors.

Scott represented the whistleblower with Boca Raton attorney James Sallah, who was also interviewed for the article.

Whistleblower Complaint

The whistleblower was a broker at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney when he and other brokers and financial advisors were told about the CitiFX Alpha trading program. Based on his belief that it was a sound investment, because of the false and misleading statements made to him, our client recommended the program to his clients in 2010 and 2011.

His clients ended up losing a significant amount of their money, and the whistleblower later found out that the program had not been reviewed or approved by Morgan Stanley and that Citigroup had made false and misleading statements about the program’s risk.

Scott Silver told the Daily Business Review (DBR) that “He was very disturbed about what he knew versus what the investors, his clients, the people who had entrusted him with their money, were seeing.”

When Morgan Stanley didn’t seem willing to fix the problem, our client decided to file a whistleblower complaint with the help of Silver Law Group and James Sallah.

Rather than file his whistleblower tip and move on with life, our client continued to provide information to the SEC for months, and even met with investors to encourage them to seek legal counsel.

In a press release, the SEC said our client “provided information that would have been difficult to detect in the absence of the tip and provided extraordinary assistance to SEC staff resulting in the return of money to investors.”

Without admitting to wrongdoing, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup settled with the SEC for $5.9 million.

Applying For Whistleblower Award

We asked the SEC for the maximum award, 30%, given the professional and financial hardship our client endured. A detailed comparison was provided to the SEC that showed what they found in their investigation and what our client had told them. Our client was awarded the maximum 30% award, $1.8 million.

Working With Experienced Whistleblower Attorneys

Anyone with timely, credible, and original information can provide a tip to the SEC, and may be eligible for a whistleblower award if the tip leads to sanctions of $1 million or more. However, as Scott Silver told DBR “There are thousands of whistleblower claims filed annually. You need to provide detailed, specific information to the best of your ability. You need to give the SEC everything they would need to look at a filing and say, ‘This is something we need to look further into. You need to deliver it in a box with a red bow.”

In fact, the SEC recommends that potential whistleblowers consider working with an attorney. Doing so may provide the best odds of having the tip investigated and of the whistleblower getting the biggest award.

Our SEC whistleblower attorneys can help you if you have information regarding securities or investment fraud or other misconduct. Cases involving securities fraud and violations of federal securities laws, including Ponzi schemes, false filings, and market manipulation are considered.

Whistleblowers can help the public interest by alerting the authorities to conduct that is harmful to the Main Street investors while also receiving a percentage of the sanction collected from the offender.

Contact us through our online form or at (800) 975-4345 for a consultation. Our attorneys work on a contingency fee basis, which means it costs nothing to hire us and we are incentivized to get you the largest award.