A Washington, D.C., organization that represents whistleblowers launched a campaign Thursday to make bank employees aware of their rights in situations where they witness wrongdoing.
The Government Accountability Project unveiled a new website —
Louis Clark, president of the Government Accountability Project, said that the non-profit organization helped develop what he called "state-of-the-art" whistleblower protections in the Dodd-Frank Act. But he added that many bank employees are not aware of these new rights, saying there's no indication that bank managers are providing that information within their ranks.
"We have not heard that they've informed their employees of these newly won rights, so we thought we would do that," Clark said.
The Government Accountability Project insists that it does not solicit whistleblowers, but its flyers direct people to an email address and a toll-free phone number where callers can leave messages.
The organization states that the vast majority of its $2.5 million operating budget comes from individual donors and foundations, and that additional money comes from legal fees, settlement awards, and services provided.
The group's flyers are being distributed outside of banks in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, New York, Charlotte, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chattanooga, Las Vegas, Orlando, Minneapolis, and Chicago, according to a press release from the organization.
Clark said that partner groups that have volunteered to distribute the flyers are choosing which banks to target. Those groups include the Home Defenders League, Occupy Wall Street, and Occupy Our Homes, according to the press release.
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Featured in the flyers are photos of two financial industry whistleblowers: Linda Almonte, formerly of JPMorgan Chase (JPM)., and Richard Bowen, formerly with Citigroup (NYSE: C). Almonte made disclosures about dubious credit-card debt collection practices at JPMorgan Chase, while Bowen issued warnings at Citi about the poor quality of many bubble-era mortgages.
The flyers also lay out some of the whistleblower reforms contained in Dodd-Frank. For example, they state that the law allows reports of wrongdoing directly to the Securities and Exchange Commission, rather than requiring internal reporting.
The flyers also note the existence of a reward program for whistleblowers whose tips lead to successful enforcement actions by the SEC.
Last month, Bradley Birkenfeld, a whistleblower at the Swiss bank UBS, received a $104 million reward for tipping off U.S. authorities to a UBS scheme that helped wealthy Americans evade taxes — even though Birkenfeld himself went to prison. That reward came under a law that was on the books prior to Dodd-Frank.
