Traders are seen working on the New York Stock Exchange floor. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A single whistleblower was awarded $200 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
According to the CFTC, the award was the largest ever paid to a whistleblower.
The regulator stated that "the whistleblower's information led to the CFTC finding important, direct evidence regarding wrongdoing."
On Thursday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission stated that it had just given $200 million to one whistleblower.
This payment is the largest ever awarded to a single person since the CFTC's whistleblower program was established in 2014 under Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010
According to the CFTC, the whistleblower's "timely and original information substantially contributed to an already ongoing investigation and led to a successful enforcement act as well as two related actions by a US federal regulator as well as a foreign regulator."
The regulator has paid over $3 billion in whistleblower payments since the beginning of the program.
A whistleblower who significantly contributes to an enforcement action's success must show that there is a "meaningful nexus", or that the information was useful in CFTC's investigation and its ability to settle the case or win the lawsuit.
An award can be given to a whistleblower who has provided information that led to monetary sanctions of between 10% and 30%. This means that the whistleblower's information resulted in monetary sanctions of at most $670 million and as high as $2 billion.
The whistleblower award comes from the CFTC Customer Protection Fund. It is completely funded by monetary sanctions that were imposed on the CFTC by those who violate the Commodity Exchange Act.
To protect the identity of the whistleblower, the CFTC did no identify the case in which he or she assisted.
