Mary Keeps Whistle-blower Pledge, Sort of
SEC chairman Mary Schapiro announced today that the agency is taking steps to improve the handling of whistle-blower complaints and enforcement tips.
The announcement was in keeping with a pledge Schapiro made back in January during her confirmation hearing. Seated before the Senate Banking Committee, Schapiro stated: “If I’m confirmed, within the first couple of weeks, I would like to create an entirely new process within the commission, so that these matters are centralized, they don’t reside out in multiple offices, but rather come through a central, fairly senior point of contact within the agency where they then can be staffed, examined, pursued, tracked, and reported to the commission, so we have an understanding of exactly what type of intelligence is coming into the agency and how it’s being followed up on by the staff of the agency.”
While today’s announcement did not attempt to suggest that the SEC had in fact created “a whole new process” to improve whistle-blower complaints, it did indicate that the SEC’s chairman remains mindful of her whistle-blower pledge and that a formal review of internal procedures for whistle-blowers has officially been hatched.
To help execute the review process, the agency said it will be working with the Center for Enterprise Modernization, a federally funded research and development center operated by The MITRE Corporation. ###
March 5th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
That certainly sounds like a step in the right direction. I’ve heard a lot of comments about the agency being under funded and under staffed in recent years, so perhaps now, through this alliance, it will have the resources it needs to follow through on whistleblower leads to the ultimate goal of stopping Madoff-like frauds sooner.
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