The securities commission in the province of Ontario wants to boost its proposed reward for corporate whistleblowers to as much as $5 million. The reward would be for someone reporting accounting fraud, insider trading and market manipulation and was originally going to be $1.5 million.
Whistleblowers must meet certain criteria to get the award. They must provide information that is of “meaningful assistance” to the commission and the case must result in sanctions of at least $1 million. In such a case, the informant could get between five and 15 per cent of the sanctions.
A first in Canada
The payouts would still be capped at $1.5 million unless the securities regulator is able to collect at least $10 million in sanctions for that particular case.
The Ontario Securities Commission is inviting comment on the proposal by January 16 and hopes to have the program in place by spring. It would be the first of its kind for Canadian securities regulators.
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