Comment Text:
Johanna Kovitz
12 Farrington Ave Apt 4
Allston, MA 02134-1717
November 22, 2010
Gary Gensler
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Three Lafayette Centre
1155 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20581
Dear Chairman Gensler:
Corporate lobbyists should not have undue influence on the final rules to protect whistleblowers. 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.
The SEC has admitted 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 kind of rules that Congress intended.
The SEC's proposed rules are so flawed that they should be discarded in their entirety and replaced with rules that conform to the recommendations of the SEC Inspector General. 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 CTFC should not blindly follow the SEC's recommendations. Instead it should write rules that 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 need rules that will prevent another financial disaster, ensure compliance with the law, and encourage employees who find wrongdoing to become whistleblowers. The SEC's proposed rules will have the opposite effect.
Congress, the SEC, and the CFTC must do what the law now requires: protect whistleblowers who risk their jobs to report fraud!
Sincerely yours,
Johanna Kovitz
617-782-5536
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