To Encourage Others, the US Has Paid More Than $100 Million to Just Over 30 Corporate Whistleblowers

Uncovering fraud at the company where you work is uncomfortable, to say the least. Alerting the authorities is fraught, as you could face intimidation, retaliation, lose your job, or get tangled up in thorny legal battles. (Or, sometimes, all of the above.) The US Securities and Exchange Commission wants to make this perilous process more worthwhile with cold, hard cash. Since 2011, the markets regulator has given out more than $100 million in rewards to 33 whistleblowers. More than half of this sum has been awarded since October last year. The SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower this week rewarded a former employee of Monsanto $22 million, its second-largest payout ever, for revealing the company was misstating earnings for one of its popular products.