UPDATED: Siedle, Raimondo Critic, to be Awarded $48M in SEC Record Whistleblower Case
Saturday, July 22, 2017
GoLocal has learned that Ted Siedle, the Forbes columnist, critic of Gina Raimondo’s investment strategy in hedge funds, and sometimes GoLocal contributor, is in line to be awarded $48 million of more than $70 million in a record award by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission case.
The final numbers will not be finalized for approximately 60 days.
Siedle, reached by phone in Florida, refused to comment on the potential award and has not made any public comment on the record award.
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The case involves a total of six JP Morgan whistleblowers — one identified as former JP Morgan rep Johnny Burris and the other GoLocal has learned is Siedle. There are four other identified whistleblowers, but none of them are to receive awards as presently structured.
According to documents leaked on Thursday to the national financial press, “The Claims Review Staff preliminarily determined to recommend to the Commission that Claimant #1 and Claimant #2 voluntarily provided original information to the Commission that led to the successful enforcement…”
"Many times the government gets a bad rap," said Burris, one of the six whistleblowers, who provided a redacted copy of the SEC letter. "With this award, the SEC and the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] have done the peoples' work and they should be commended for that,“ Burris told On Wall Street.
As a part of the government action, JPMorgan agreed to pay over $300 million in regulatory fines in 2016.
CFTC is expected to make an additional monetary whistleblower awards in this case within the next month after the agency’s new regulations go into effect. That may increase the amount to the two award recipients.
Ryan White spokesperson of the SEC refused to confirm Burris and Siedle, "The agency has no comment."
Raimondo Criticizes Siedle
Over the past three plus years, Siedle has repeatedly raised concerns about Raimondo’s management of the RI employees pension fund and has repeatedly said that any money saved by pension reform has been squandered in fees to hedge funds.
Raimondo dismissed Siedle's criticism from the onset - he is a columnist for Forbes and a former SEC investigator - she said he is an agenda driven “blogger.”
The rivalry by Siedle and Raimondo goes back to when Raimondo was Treasurer and Siedle criticized her investment strategy which focused a higher proportion than most states in investment in alternative investment aka, hedge funds.
After GoLocal unveiled the issues raised by Siedle, the Providence Journal reported a few month later -- in October of 2013 that Raimondo said, “There is nothing new here (of a Siedle report). This is just a rehash of criticism we have seen from this person in the past ... He is making tens of thousands of dollars, paid by opponents of pension reform, to poke holes in me...and our pension reform efforts.″
On Thursday on GoLocal LIVE, then Governor Chafee criticized Raimondo for not only her investment strategies as Treasurer, but also her claims about her role in pension reform. "And my final issue [on pension reform] is performance," said Chafee. "Retirees were promised their COLA would come back when the fund reached a certain solvency -- and now the hedge funds [investments] pushed that out further. The investments were terrible with the rapaciously high fees. The retirees have to be livid,” Chafee said.
Earlier this year, now-Treasurer Seth Magaziner rejected Raimondo’s investment strategy and dramatically lowered the RI retirement’s system investment in hedge funds.
"We are moving away from the high-cost hedge funds that have failed to meet expectations while charging unacceptably high fees. Our new Back to Basics strategy will improve performance and reduce risk, providing a more secure future for Rhode Island public employees and all taxpayers,” said Magaziner.
In one Forbes column, Siedle wrote about Raimondo, "The wreckage related to Raimondo’s failed stint as a small-time venture capitalist is finally out in the open for all Rhode Islanders to see. The Point Judith II fund she pitched to the Employees Retirement System of Rhode Island (in which the pension risked $5 million) has returned a pathetic -1.1 percent over the past almost ten years—after paying her rich fees of 2.5 percent. If making money off your investors defines success, then Raimondo’s a superstar."
Largest Award Ever When Finalized
In 2014, the SEC announced the then-largest whistleblower award, when it announced an expected award of more than $30 million to a whistleblower who provided key original information that led to a successful SEC enforcement action.
That award was then the largest made by the SEC’s whistleblower program to date and the fourth award to a whistleblower living in a foreign country, demonstrating the program’s international reach.
“This whistleblower came to us with information about an ongoing fraud that would have been very difficult to detect,” said Andrew Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement in 2014. “This record-breaking award sends a strong message about our commitment to whistleblowers and the value they bring to law enforcement.”
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