Thread by @dcolapinto

“SEC handily won its civil enforcement action…in 2014,” and collected $54 million.

But SEC denied an award to the #whistleblower (represented by ⁦@KKCWhistleblow)⁩ who discovered the fraud & helped the SEC win its case.

-⁦@iimag⁩ institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1t04q…

This is the story of @KKCWhistleblow #Whistleblower client “Gene Ross, father of three, who, in the process of voluntarily cooperating with government prosecutors and regulatory agencies in the criminal and civil actions against Amerindo, lost his job at Bear Stearns…” - @iimag

It should be noted that Bear Stearns “strongly discouraged” the #Whistleblower’s “participation in the legal reckoning that followed, cut his pay, took away his sales team, and subjected him to unchecked harassment and retaliation.”

“After leaving Bear, Ross was forced to sell his home to cover mounting legal bills that eventually bankrupted him. Yet he continued to provide evidence, documents, and testimony as a star witness in the 2008 criminal case that put Vilar and Tanaka behind bars.”

At the criminal trial the federal prosecutor called Ross as a key witness and in summation reminded the jury that Ross had uncovered the fraud, informed his client she had been defrauded, confronted the fraudsters directly & promptly reported the fraud.

Without the #Whistleblower discovering the fraud and his prompt action the SEC and DOJ would not have opened an investigation.

It was soon discovered that the fraudsters had defrauded the #whistleblower’s client out of $5 million and they defrauded other investors. The result was the SEC recovering from these fraudsters in 2014 more than $50 million to return funds lost by other investors.

The SEC’s denial of a #whistleblower award is particularly unjust in this case because the “SEC’s case against Amerindo, based on Ross’s discovery of the fraud, did not proceed until after Dodd-Frank was enacted.”

The SEC’s decision to deny Ross a #Whistleblower award “is literally going out of its way to be discouraging and to prevent future whistleblowers from coming forward,” says @dcolapinto of @KKCWhistleblow.

“The final order ultimately exposes how the #whistleblower program, after a decade of issuing nearly a billion dollars in awards, still exhibits serious flaws in both design and logic.” - writes @truth_eater of @iimag

In this case Ross reported too soon and too late all at the same time, according to SEC ruling. That’s a no-win scenario. Lesson to any SEC #whistleblower: call a lawyer before doing anything even if it means not reporting fraud to defrauded investors or your employer.