No Payout for Whistleblower Who Helped SEC Land $19M Fine

A Deutsche Bank insider who helped federal regulators land a $19 million penalty is now in court arguing she should get a piece of it—rather than nothing. The Wall Street Journal reports that former DWS Group sustainability chief Desiree Fixler went public in 2021 with concerns that Deutsche Bank's asset manager was overselling how deeply it baked ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors into its investing. Her comments to the Journal helped trigger an SEC probe. She filed a complaint with the SEC three days after the Journal's article appeared and later spent more than 100 hours assisting investigators.

Under the SECs whistleblower program, Fixler might have expected an award of 10% to 30% of the fine. Instead, the SEC denied her claim, saying her tip wasn't "voluntary" because commission staff first learned of her allegations from the media, not from her. Fixler and her lawyer call that interpretation both inconsistent with the meaning of "voluntary" and a deterrent to speaking to the press. She's now appealing in federal court. "The SEC broke its own rules," Fixler says. "I worked with them for two years, and then they denied me the award for the case I built."

The SEC has paid more than $2 billion to tipsters since it launched its whistleblower program 15 years ago, but payments fell to $60 million last year, the lowest since 2019, and the agency has been cutting back on enforcement, the Journal reports. Companies have also been scaling back ESG initiatives, along with diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Fixler has emerged as a prominent critic of ESG and DEI initiatives. "I think this whole equity thing is communist propaganda," she told the New York Times last month. "Life is unfair."