Page Perry

Financial service industry whistleblower claims have become a hot item. Ironically, it is even reported that a crowd funding website is being used by an individual who hopes to raise money from people interested in investing in a portfolio of financial whistleblower claims.  Of course, crowd funding is one of the newest and most controversial parts of the U.S. securities arena.  The interests that are being offered via crowd funding are in claims filed with regulators by whistleblowers who believe they have evidence of fraud or other wrongdoing that was perpetrated in the securities arena. For more information regarding whistleblower claims, see SEC Whistleblower/Financial Fraud Whistleblowers.

The promoter of the project is Edward “Ted” Siedle.  His project is called Wall Street Whistleblower Forensic Investigation Fund, and the crowd funding site through which he is soliciting donations is called RocketHub (“Fraud sleuth passes hat for whistle-blower effort,” by Dan Jamieson, InvestmentNews).

At this point Mr. Siedle is soliciting donations rather than investment capital since investor crowd funding is not legally available yet. The donations will be used to generate publicity to help launch the project that would raise investment capital to fund whistleblower claims when the SEC rules for investor crowd funding are finalized.  Mr. Siedle reportedly wants to raise nearly $2 million from investors in exchange for a chance at sharing in any whistleblower awards he helps procure.

Mr. Siedle, who is something of a professional securities fraud investigator and a former SEC lawyer, is said to have filed about 120 claims on behalf of whistleblowers, about 90 of which are filed with the SEC, which is investigating at least three of them.

The SEC has reportedly reserved $452 million for whistleblowers, who may be awarded between 10% to 30% of any money collected in a case that nets at least $1 million in penalties and originates from information provided by the whistleblower.

Page Perry is an Atlanta-based law firm with over 150 years of collective experience maintaining integrity in the investment markets and protecting investor rights.