Essay On SEC Whistleblowers

1. The SEC is often called the “watchdog” of corporate America. How does it assist in preventing fraud?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the US federal agency that holds the primary mandate to enforce federal securities laws and regulations to control the securities industry and the country’s stock exchange and regulation of all activities and organizations including the US electronic securities market. The SEC is committed to promoting a market environment that yields public trust characterized by integrity to attain its mission of protecting investors through maintenance of fair and efficient markets through facilitation of capital information (Basagne, 2010). The SEC financing is a major area of focus since there has been major concern regarding the SEC agency financing and whether they utilize the

The Securities and Exchange Commission has the mission of protecting investors by maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets. The SEC does this in a number of ways, and firms need to pay attention to these ways in order to ensure SEC compliance. The SEC has enforcement authority over a number of areas related to the nation's capital markets, including insider trading, accounting fraud, and providing false information. The SEC's jurisdiction extends to all securities that are traded publicly. Privately-held companies do not need to register with the SEC (SEC.gov, 2012).

The Security and Exchange Commission is the organization who monitors fraudulent transactions and insider trading. Some experts in ethical behavior consider inside trading the most dramatic form of utilitarian ethics.

4. Through interaction with general counsel, compliance matters such as those that relate to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

How strong is the case? It is not definitive given the information available but in reality the truth does not matter. Mounting a defense against the SEC makes little sense for Begelman. Being a civil case, criminal charges are not a consideration. The state is seeking a civil penalty and a repayment of the gains (Securities and Exchange Commission). If Begelman surrenders his profits and pays a penalty of $15K he is able to avoid any admission of wrongdoing (Gehrke-White). Thus, it is pragmatic and financially beneficial (avoid prolonged legal fees) for Begelman to settle and move on regardless of his actual guilt or innocence. The only winner in the case is the State. The SEC effectively extorts $30K from the defendant by

Access the "Litigation" section of the SEC's website at www.sec.gov/litigation.shtml. Click on "Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases." Click on "AAER-3234" filed January 20, 2011. Read the release and the related SEC Complaint. Summarize the release and complaint in 2-3 pages (12-point, double spaced).

The definition section of the Dodd-Frank Act defines a whistleblower as someone who “provides . . . information related to a violation of the securities law to the [Securities and Exchange]

It's essential to select a law firm with expertise in the SEC Whistleblower program and experience representing whistleblowers. You will be dealing with your lawyer and the law firm's staff for years until the case is resolved, so select a firm where you feel comfortable and where you feel confident that they will handle your case with discretion and integrity.

Although only required to discuss two associations this writer thought it was important to discuss the SEC as they are directly connected to FINRA in that they take litigation cases, and fraud cases from FINRA and follows up on whether any security laws or criminal laws were broken. Once they investigate the wrong doing they proceed with the corrective action that best suits the offense not excluding criminal prosecution and jail time. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (2014) website the mission of the SEC is to “protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation”. The SEC was created to ensure that all investors big or small have a fair and unbiased account of a

Some investors wondered, did the SEC have any knowledge of the fraud happening at Madoff Securities? SEC investigated Madoff Securities on at least 8 occasions prior to 2008. However, each investigation resulted in no wrong-doing. Most of the complaints were filed by Harry Markopolos. Harry Markopolos is a financial analyst and fraud investigator from Boston. In 2005, Harry Markopolos, sent the SEC a lengthy complaint that clearly specified and identified the 29 red flags suggesting fraud. Unfortunately, the SEC did not act on any of Mr. Markopolos accurate finds. Among these red flags was Madoff’s refusal to provide his clients with online access to their accounts and would instead mail monthly account statement to each client. Bernie would

Bouville (2008) describes whistleblowing as an act for an employee of revealing what he believes to be unethical or described as an illegal behaviour to a higher management (internal whistleblowing) or to an external authority or the public (external whistleblowing). Whistle-blowers are often seen as traitors to an organisation as they are considered to have violated the loyalty terms of that organisation while some are described as heroes that defend the values and ethics of humanity rather than loyalty to their company. In the medical community, it is the duty of a practitioner aware of patient care being threatened to make it known to those in charge and for those in charge to address the issues and act on it. The General Medical

this is where the behavior is examined and changed by using reprimands or retraining. Finally,

Whistleblowers perform in many careers and are found at all levels of an organization: scientists and secretaries, lawyers and paralegals, managers and staff, security personnel and computer specialists, etc. They are as varied in age, ethnic background, education, profession, sex, and income as the population at large.

The illegal construction of the Bernie Madoff securities pyramid scheme grew to preposterous proportions from legal, auditing, and regulatory weaknesses of the Securities Exchange Commission, the designated regulatory body of the U.S. financial markets. The required expertise, authority, and relevant penalties needed to deter management from committing ethical breaches lacked substance in the case study of BMIS (Crews 11). Even after the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals that occurred in the early 2000s, the SEC unexplainably revoked provisions created to help avoid fraud. The provision the SEC revoked specifically mandated firms structured like Madoff’s to be audited by accounting firms registered and audited by the Board. By revoking the provision, BMIS was allowed to continue its Ponzi scheme for another half a decade with the aid of utilizing an unregistered, small accounting firm called Freihling & Horowitz (“Madoff’s Jenga”