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New rewards for whistleblowers at US financial firms are expected to bring a surge in tip-offs, a report says.
Lawyers told the Financial Times the prospect of such payouts offered a “tremendous incentive” for highlighting alleged wrongdoing.
People providing information that leads to the financial watchdog bringing a successful case are entitled to up to 30% of sanctions imposed above 1m.
Business groups warned of potential misuse of the system.
Rewards for whistleblowers are part of Wall Street reforms that became law last month.
The scheme is a “tremendous incentive” for people to blow the whistle, Columbia University law professor John Coffee told the FT.
There was unlikely to be a shortage of “entrepreneurial law firms” to represent them, he added.
The US already has a False Claim Act, that allows people to file actions against federal contractors who they accuse of committing claims fraud against the government.
Previously used primarily against defence firms, it is now largely focused on the health care industry.
Tim Coleman, a partner at law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, told the FT his firm predicted “more cases based on the experience under the false claims act”.
The US watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is expecting a sharp increase in tip-offs – both from senior employees and third parties.
“The scale of the awards reflects the high quality of whistleblower we hope to get – people within a company, broker or other regulated firm that we might not have heard from before,” Stephen Cohen, an SEC official, told the Financial Times.
“We're expecting a tremendous response”
Mr Cohen insisted the SEC could cope with the expected influx of new allegations.
“We already have systems in place, which we're improving, for dealing with thousands of tips every year.
“If this can help us to bring cases more efficiently and quickly, it will make us a more effective regulator.”
Groups representing financial companies have expressed concerns that the generosity of the potential rewards for whistleblowers could lead to speculative tip-offs – including from ex-employees – which would be disruptive for firms and waste the SEC's time.
“Our only concern is if this were to encourage malicious whistleblowing – people making stuff up to cause trouble,” the Association for Financial Markets in Europe told the FT.
“The company will end up being cleared, but investigations still take up a great deal of time and resources.”

Source:BBC

The Apple executive who oversaw development of the troubled iPhone 4 is leaving the company.
Mark Papermaster has been head of Apple's iPhone and iPod hardware engineering department since 2009 when he joined the company from IBM.
His departure is widely believed to be linked to the problems with the antenna on the iPhone 4.
Apple would not comment on the reasons for his departure or whether he resigned or was fired.
Soon after the iPhone 4 was released in late June many owners began reporting that it dropped calls. Evidence emerged that signal strength faded when the phone was held in a particular way.
The problem was traced to the iPhone's use of its metal casing to house its antennas. Bridging the short gap between two antennas on the lower left-hand side of the case caused signal strength to leak away.
An investigation by the influential Consumer Reports organisation confirmed the problem and led to it declaring that it could not recommend the product.
Initially, Apple downplayed the problems but the continuing furore led it to offer free cases to all iPhone 4 owners as these stop the gap being bridged. Mr Papermaster was not present at the press conference where the offer to iPhone 4 owners was unveiled.
An Apple spokesman said Mr Papermaster's responsibilities would be assumed by Bob Mansfield who currently oversees engineering efforts for the company's Macintosh products.
He also has a role in guiding development of some of the components for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Mr Papermaster worked at IBM for 25 years before joining Apple. Although hired in 2008 he did not start work at Apple until mid 2009 because IBM filed a lawsuit saying his taking up the post breached terms of his contract.

Source:BBC

Online marketplace Craigslist is under mounting pressure over the “adult services” section of its site.
Critics say posts on this section are little more than thinly disguised adverts for sex and “facilitates trafficking”.
In a paid-for advert in The Washington Post, two sex workers made a direct appeal to the sites founder, saying it wrecked their lives.
A spokesman for Craigslist said the site was being made a “scapegoat”.
“Dear Craig,” began the letter from a 17-year-old calling herself MC.
“I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28-year-old man.
“All day, other girls and I sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist,” the letter continued.
“I am 17 now, and my childhood memories aren't of my family, going to middle school, or dancing at the prom. They are of making my own arrangements on Craigslist to be sold for sex, and answering as many ads as possible for fear of beatings and ice water baths.”
The letter said that Craigslist was now the choice of traffickers because it was “so well known and there are rarely consequences to using it for these illegal acts”.
Last year, the site bowed to sustained pressure to shut down its “erotic services” section, replacing the nude images and explicit descriptions with a monitored section and a 10 (6) charge to make a listing.
Critics said this did not go far enough.
Connecticut's attorney general Richard Blumenthal – who is heading up a group of 39 US states examining craigslist adult services section – called on the section to be closed.
Earlier this year, the US lawmaker subpoenaed Craigslist, and asked whether it “is actually profiting from prostitution ads that it promised the states and public that it would try to block.”
The firms chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, wrote to the Washington Post saying that his firm was the wrong target.
“Scapegoating advertising services is a very unfortunate misdirection of attention and energy from the tough choices, hard work, and significant investments required for addressing actual causes of, and making actual progress against the scourges of trafficking and child exploitation,” he wrote.
Andrea Powell, head of Fair Fund – a group that works with women who have been sold for sex and one of the groups who paid for the advert in the Washington Post – described Craigslist as “the Wall-Mart of online sex trafficking”.
“Most of the young people we work with who have been exploited online, they talk about Craigslist. They don't talk about other sites.”
The advert in The Washington Post echoes a letter from sex workers published earlier this year.

Source:BBC

Oscar-winning US actress Patricia Neal has died aged of 84 from lung cancer.
Neal won an Academy Award for her role in the 1963 film Hud, but gave up acting two years later at the age of 39 after suffering a series of strokes.
But she returned to the screen after rehabilitation to earn a further Oscar and several Emmy nominations.
The star, who was born in Tennessee, was married to author Roald Dahl for 30 years and is the grandmother of model and TV presenter Sophie Dahl.
Indomitable grace
Neal's daughter Tessa is the mother of Dahl.
The actress was a star on Broadway before making the move to Hollywood in the late 1940s.
Among her early screen roles were 1951 sci-fi movies The Day The Earth Stood Still and A Face In The Crowd directed by Elia Kazan.Her best actress Oscar for Hud recognised her portrayal of a tough housekeeper who refused to succumb to the charms of Paul Newman's character.
Neal had to learn to walk and talk again after suffering her strokes, returning to film in 1968 and being Oscar-nominated for The Subject Was Roses.
The actress's illness had left her with impaired memory and unable to remember large chunks of script.
She went on to play Olivia Walton in a TV drama which was the vehicle for popular series The Waltons, gaining the first of three Emmy nominations.
Neal, who divorced Roald Dahl in 1983, dipped out of the spotlight until 1999 when she returned to the big screen in Cookie's Fortune by Robert Altman.
The actress, who was famed for her husky voice, gained her last screen credit for Flying, made in 2009.
Her family said in a statement that on the day before she died, the screen star said: “I've had a lovely time.”
They added: “She faced her final illness as she had all of the many trials she endured, with indomitable grace, good humour and a great deal of her self-described stubbornness.”

Source:BBC

Mexico's biggest airline, Mexicana de Aviacion, has cancelled some flights, days after it filed for bankruptcy protection.
Mexciana suspended 13 flights from Monday with two more routes halted beginning Tuesday and Wednesday.
Cutbacks included flights to and from London, Madrid, Montreal, Chicago and cities in Central and South America.
The bankruptcy protection bid came after the carrier failied to reach a deal with trade unions on cost cutting.
The airline said its financial situation “had deteriorated substantially” as a series of events “strangled” the cash flow it needed to finance its day-to-day operations.
Mexciana, which is Mexico's largest air carrier,
It had suspended ticket sales last week, but said it would continue operating flights for travellers who had already bought them.
But the heavily-indebted airline had not said how long it would continue to honouring such tickets.
It said the cancellations had been made to “optimize available resources and ensure that priority is given to homebound passengers”.
Mexicana had proposed deep pay cuts for pilots and crew, as well as a 40% reduction in the workforce.
The firm suffered heavy losses during Mexico's recession in 2009, as well during an outbreak of swine flu the same year.
The outbreak caused a sharp fall in tourism in the country.
Before the suspension of flights, Mexicana had 220 daily flights to 65 national and international destinations, including the US, Canada, South America and Europe.
The company says it carried 1.1 million passengers in 2009.
The 89-year-old airline has debts of about 800m (500m).

Source:BBC

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion has so far cost BP a total of 6.1bn (3.8bn), the company has said.
The total includes the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, and cementing up of the damaged well.
The sum also includes grants to the Gulf states hit by the spill.
It also includes the 319m paid out in compensation to some of those affected by the spill.
The firm said there were now 30,800 people working on the spill response.
Oil is no longer leaking into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April.
“BP believes the static kill and cementing procedures have been successful,” the company said.
An estimated 4.9 million barrels spilled from the damaged well in the 87 days from the beginning of the disaster until the leak was finally capped on July 15, the US government has said.
BP has yet to be drawn about what will happen to the oilfield after the damaged well is blocked. There is still a huge amount of oil in the reservoir deep under the seabed.

Source:BBC