Today, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced the SEC Whistleblower Reform Act of 2025, which makes a number of technical reforms to bolster the SEC Whistleblower Program.
“The bipartisan SEC Whistleblower Reform Act offers simple fixes to three of the few shortcomings facing the otherwise immensely successful SEC Whistleblower Program,” says Andrew Feller, Senior Special Counsel at Kohn, Kohn, and Colapinto, LLP. “This important bill will help ensure that the SEC Whistleblower Program continues to play a central role in the Commission’s work of protecting investors, ensuring the integrity of the market, and holding fraudsters accountable.”
“Protecting whistleblowers from retaliation, incentivizing qualified whistleblowers with timely awards, and prohibiting companies from muzzling would-be-whistleblowers are the three core features of the SEC Whistleblower Program. The SEC Whistleblower Reform Act is a critically important piece of legislation because it bolsters all three,” adds Feller, who served as Senior Counsel in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement prior to joining Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto.
The SEC Whistleblower Reform Act extends the SEC Whistleblower Program’s anti-retaliation protections to employees who report internally to compliance programs. The Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers stripped internal whistleblowers of these protections by ruling that whistleblowers must report directly to the SEC to qualify for protections.
The SEC Whistleblower Reform Act also targets delays in award processing by requiring the SEC to issue an initial ruling on a claim within 1 year of the deadline to file the claim and clarifies that whistleblowers cannot waive their rights through a predispute arbitration agreement.
Senators Grassley and Warren previously introduced the SEC Whistleblower Reform Act in 2023. Former SEC Commissioner Allison Herren Lee, now Of Counsel at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, offered an article for the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance calling for the bill's passage.
