Comment Text:
Russell Skinner
310 Paul Drive
Kimberly, WI 54136-1222
April 24, 2011
Gary Gensler
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Three Lafayette Centre
1155 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20581
Dear Chairman Gensler:
I am deeply concerned that the whistleblower rules the Security Exchange
Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are
currently drafting will not fulfill the Congressional intent of
Dodd-Frank. I am concerned that the corporate lobby will have undue
influence on the final rules to protect whistleblowers.
I am particularly concerned with admissions by the SEC that their proposed
rules would 'limit the pool of eligible whistleblowers,' 'reduce the
number of possibly useful informants,' 'discourage some whistleblowers,'
cause 'persons not to come forward,' and result in 'forgone opportunities
for effective enforcement action.' These are not the rules that Congress
intended. These rules violate the law and undermine the public interest.
The SEC proposed rules completely undermine efforts to protect employees
who risk their careers to expose fraud. Incredibly, not only does the SEC
admit that their rules undermine the legal protections in Dodd-Frank, but
the SEC failed to adopt recommendations of their own Inspector General on
how to improve their whistleblower reward program. The SEC proposed rules
are so flawed that they must be discarded in their entirety and should be
replaced with rules that conform to the recommendations of the SEC
Inspector General.
The CTFC should not blindly follow any of the SEC's recommendations and
should instead write rules will encourage whistleblowers to report
commodities fraud.
Wall Street has been a mean street for any employee who has the guts to
step forward to report securities and/or commodities fraud. As a result,
every American has suffered from the financial meltdown. The SEC and the
CFTC must write rules that will prevent another financial disaster, ensure
compliance with the law and encourage employees to risk their careers by
becoming whistleblowers.
The SEC's proposed rules will have the opposite effect. Please do
everything in your power to ensure that the SEC withdraws its current
proposal and approves final rules that protect the public. We cannot
afford to have the SEC fail to detect the next Bernie Madoff, costing
innocent Americans billions of dollars. Congress, the SEC and the CFTC
must do what the law now requires: protect whistleblowers that risk their
jobs to report fraud!
Sincerely,
Russell Skinner
920-730-9522
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