SE Asia fast-growing source of whistleblowing to US regulator

Singapore

WHISTLEBLOWING seems to be catching on in South-east Asia, and in Singapore and Malaysia in particular.

The region has emerged as one of the fastest-growing sources of tipoffs on violations of US securities laws to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). (see infographic)

The securities regulator has announced that the number of tipoffs from individuals in South-east Asia grew from six in fiscal 2012 to 10 in fiscal 2013, and then to 35 in 2014.

For the sake of comparison, the jump between 2013 and 2014 is a 250-per-cent spike; globally, the growth in number of tipoffs over that same period was just 12 per cent.

The figures come from the 2014 report of the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program, the SEC's three-year-old whistleblower programme, and were analysed by…