Caterpillar's whistle-blower to get a 600 million dollar reward

There is only one effective way to do away with corruption and fraud. Reward the figure of the "whistle-blower" that uncovers cases of political and corporate corruption. Until recently, being a whistle-blower did not bring any benefits and the norm would be to end up stigmatized, without employment and career loss. This has started to change in the US, with the first good results starting to show up.

The latest whistle-blower case is with Caterpillar, the construction machinery manufacturer that has seen one of its accountants, Daniel Schlicksup, report to the US tax authorities the aggressive accounting practices carried out by Caterpillar that Have allowed the company to "evade" taxes by diverting part of his activity to Switzerland, after seeing how the allegations presented by him to the top management of the company fell on deaf ears.

The result? Caterpillar is now facing a hefty fine by the US Treasury of nearly $2 billion and potential criminal charges. As in the case of Deutsche Bank's "whistle-blower" that received from the SEC 8.5 million dollars, Schlicksup can receive a large reward that would reach $600 million dollars, which would make it the highest paid whistle-blower of all the times.

In most legal systems, the "whistle-blower" figure does not usually have large rewards (if any at all) except for possible conviction reductions. Most likely, the "whistle-blower" will end (and stay) unemployed, stigmatized and vetoed from the labor market. Often not enough, incentive for the speak up is not there, not just that, they get attacked for doing so by a powerful corporate ecosystem.

Uncovering a case of fiscal fraud in large corporations or corruption is almost impossible without the collaboration of a " "whistle-blower" . Perhaps, if we want a "cleaner" and transparent society we should start protecting and encouraging the figure of the "whistle-blower".