Over the last several months, we have been working behind the scenes to put together a database of final award orders issued by the SEC and CFTC. While the project remains a work-in-progress, it is at the stage where it seems others might benefit from access.
We undertook this project, in part, to make our own review of the orders more streamlined. The SEC and CFTC websites provide easy access to download recent award orders, but do not provide any search capacity beyond a date limiter. Our database pulls the same orders and adds various search variables. You’ll be able to both run text searches and narrow orders by various characteristics, such as whether an award application was granted or denied, if there were one or more whistleblowers involved, the amount of the award issued, or by the agency file number. Of course, the nature these award orders means that not all of the information is included in every order, or, if it is included, the key data points are redacted. We have designed our search fields to take those variations into account; for example, you can search for awards by percentage range, by dollar value range, by selecting the “award amount redacted” option, or simply leave the field blank to take into account all possibilities.
As mentioned above, this database is a work in progress. At this point, all CFTC orders have been uploaded and are searchable. The SEC orders uploaded to date include all of the orders we classified as “partially granted” (i.e. orders with multiple claimants, where some award applications were granted and some were denied), as well as all of the orders classified as “granted.” The balance of the orders–namely, those denying awards–are in progress. We will continue that work and provide a further update when all historical orders have been included. And, of course, we will continue to update these databases monthly, as new orders are issued by the Agencies.
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We have created a search form to help you identify orders using multiple search criteria. We hope you find this database useful.
Here is a brief summary of how to use the database:
This is the search form. It shows the different parameters you can search by. You can leave a field blank to leave that parameter unfiltered. If you submit with all fields blank, it will show you all whistleblower orders in the database.
Awarding Agency. Search by the agency that issued the order. You can view orders issued by the SEC or the CFTC. Leaving this field blank will show orders issued by both agencies.
Selecting CFTC will reveal the Award Determination Number search field. This allows you to search for a specific order by CFTC Award Determination No.
Selecting SEC will reveal the Release Number and File Number search fields.
Release Number allows you to search for a specific order by SEC Release No. File Number allows you to search for a specific order by SEC File No.
These extra fields will only be shown when the relevant Awarding Agency is selected.
Search by Date. You can restrict the range of dates by setting a specific start and end date. If you leave one field blank, it will show all cases from before or after the date set.
Number of Whistleblowers. Search by the number of whistleblowers (single whistleblower or multiple whistleblowers) who submitted an award application for a given matter.
Status. Search by the determination of the whistleblower award applications. Granted searches for determinations where the application(s) are granted. Denied searches for determinations where the application(s) are denied. Partially Granted searches for determinations where some amount of whistleblowers applications are granted, and some amount of whistleblowers applications are denied regarding the same matter. Note that Partially Granted can only ever apply to matters where more than one whistleblower applied for an award.
Award Amount. Search for the absolute or relative amount of money awarded. Partially Granted or Granted matters with multiple whistleblowers will use the combined total of all awards paid.
Text Lookup. You can search the text of the award determination. Results found this way will not highlight relevant sections of the text. Text is transcribed by OCR process. For most accurate results, view document PDF.
Once your search parameters are set, press submit and the entries will load below the search form. Your parameters are saved, so you can change individual fields for a new search without resetting.
You can view the text of the document within the search results.
Clicking on “Show Document Text” will expand the entry with the text of the document.
You can view the document itself by clicking “Open Document in New Tab” This will open the document in a new tab in your browser. This PDF is downloadable.
Some CFTC determinations have associated press releases. You can view the text of the press release within the search results. Clicking on “Show Press Release Text” will expand the entry with the text of the press release. Clicking “Open Press Release in New Tab” will open the press release on the CFTC website in a new tab in your browser.
