According to reports from Reuters and several other news agencies, an award of over $22,000,000 will be given to a “Monsanto whistleblower” who has yet to be named.
The award comes as part of an $80 million settlement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that took place back in February, according to lawyer Stuart Meissner of New York in a statement.
The Reuters article said that the settlement was the SEC’s second largest under the program, all stemming from allegations that Monsanto engaged in some potentially serious financial misdeeds.
Monsanto Forced to Pay Up
Activists and concerned citizens have been watching Monsanto’s bottom line for years now, as the controversial company has suffered several waves of bad press and up and down financial fortunes.
The SEC has been watching as well, and that scrutiny culminated in allegations that Monsanto misstated its earnings in regards to Roundup, its flagship herbicide (whose main ingredient glyphosate has been declared a probable human carcinogen by the WHO).
According to the Reuters article Monsanto ran a corporate rebate program with the goal of boosting Roundup sales. Monsanto allegedly did not create proper internal controls that would help to track the millions of dollars in rebates that were offered through the program. The company did not recognize the costs of the program in its books and brought in a huge amount of revenue. The SEC stated that Monsanto “materially” misstated its consolidated earnings over three years, the report added.
Monsanto has not admitted or denied the charges and said it did not believe it was appropriate to comment on the SEC program. The company also said at the time that funds were reserved to pay for any penalties in the 2015 fiscal year.
“Company employees are in unique positions behind-the-scenes to unravel complex or deeply buried wrongdoing. Without this whistleblower’s courage, information, and assistance, it would have been extremely difficult for law enforcement to discover this securities fraud on its own,” said Jane Norberg, Acting Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, in a prepared statement.
For more information on the story including the SEC whistleblower program that led to the settlement, you can click on the full article here.
