by Jason Zuckerman and Matthew Stock - The National Law Review

To promote the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mission of preventing consumer harm, the CFPB is working with Congress to advance legislation that would create a whistleblower reward program. The draft legislation creating a CFPB whistleblower reward program is similar to the SEC whistleblower reward program. Under the proposed program, a whistleblower who provides original information to the CFPB relating to a violation of Federal consumer financial law that results in an enforcement action yielding at least $1,000,000 in monetary sanctions would be eligible for an award of 10 to 30 percent of the collected monetary sanctions. The Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010, which created the CFPB includes a provision protecting whistleblowers against retaliation for reporting violations of CFPB rules, but it does not authorize awards to whistleblowers.