Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog
SEC Awards Two More Whistleblowers A Total of $54M
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently announced that the agency has awarded two more individuals funds totaling $54 million under the SEC’s Whistleblower Program.
The first individual was awarded $39 million, and the second was awarded $15 million. Both offered information and assistance that resulted in enforcement actions. The $39 million award is the second largest award in the program’s history.
After voluntarily providing the SEC with “original, timely, and credible information that leads to a successful enforcement action,” individuals may be eligible for monetary awards. For sanctions exceeding $1 million, whistleblowers may be awarded as much as 10% to 30%. Whistleblowers are a great help to an investigation, and can supply valuable information that might not otherwise be available.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) filed orders today that brought and settled cases against two commodities firms engaged in unauthorized trading and two traders attempting to manipulate commodity prices.
The SEC is seeking civil relief penalties and disgorgement of the ill-gotten gains against the defendants and the companies.
On September 7, 2018, the SEC charged Aquino with defrauding customers by engaging in “churning” to generate excessive commissions for himself, in the amount of $930,000. Aquino’s customers lost a total of $881,000. At the time of these allegations, May 2014 through November 2017, Aquino was registered with Meyers Associates, L.P. (now known as Windsor Street Capital.) The SEC complaint also states that in 2015 and 2016, Aquino and an unnamed colleague engaged in cold-calling leads acquired from a publicly available database.
Broker Emil Bottvinnik (
The SEC announced this week
Foust currently has seven disclosures on his record, all customer disputes, one of which was closed without action. These customer disputes were all filed in the period between June 2017 and July 2018.