WASHINGTON, D.C. | November 19, 2021 — National Whistleblower Center (NWC), alongside Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF), Government Accountability Project (GAP), and Project On Government Oversight (POGO), sent a letter to the House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, urging them to fully support S.Amendment.4437, proposed by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and cosponsored by Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) of 2022.
NWC, TAF, GAP, and POGO strongly support this amendment because it will correct two major deficiencies in the whistleblower provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, by setting minimum award payments and creating a separate fund to pay awards.
These corrections simply conform the current AML whistleblower reward law to the procedures that have proven to be remarkably effective. Every other successful whistleblower reward law, such as the Dodd-Frank Act, the False Claims Act, the Auto Safety Act, and the IRS tax whistleblower law, guarantee fully qualified whistleblowers a minimum payment if they lawfully provide original information that results in an actual recovery by the United States. The language setting up a separate reward fund comes directly from the three most recent whistleblower reward laws enacted as part of the Commodity Exchange Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and Auto Safety Act.
Without this bipartisan amendment, whistleblowers are disincentivized from reporting, which undermines Congressional intent. These two provisions are necessary to ensure the AML law is able to successfully fight money laundering.
NWC Executive Director Siri Nelson is available for comment. For more information, please contact National Whistleblower Center at info@whistleblowers.org.
