“To amend the Small Business Act to establish the Office of Whistleblower Awards, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section establishes an Office of Whistleblower Awards within the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Office of Performance, Planning, and the Chief Financial Officer, to be administered by a competitive service employee. The office must evaluate whistleblower-submitted information on financial misconduct or fraudulent misrepresentation by recipients of SBA financial assistance to determine if it is original information (i.e., not previously known to the government from other sources); transmit original information to the SBA Inspector General (IG); and track its use in obtaining final convictions, settlements, or plea agreements related to COVID loan actions (i.e., actions involving SBA loans such as Paycheck Protection Program or Economic Injury Disaster Loans provided during the COVID-19 pandemic). For original information contributing to such outcomes, the office pays a whistleblower award from the Whistleblower Award Fund equal to 10% of deposited amounts if the convicted or settling party is a U.S. national or entity or 15% if foreign (with only the whistleblower making the most substantial contribution eligible if multiple submitters); reduces awards to zero or denies them if the whistleblower planned or initiated the misconduct or is criminally convicted related to it; requires no contract for eligibility; and disburses payments within one year of fund deposits with status updates to whistleblowers.
This section directs the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to issue regulations necessary to implement section 49 of the Small Business Act (new whistleblower awards program for recoveries from COVID-19 loan fraud). Specifically, the Administrator must issue (1) general implementation rules not later than six months after enactment and (2) rules not later than three months after enactment establishing a process under which the head of the Office of Whistleblower Awards, after transmitting original information to the SBA Inspector General and tracking it to a final conviction, settlement, or plea agreement with respect to a COVID loan action, requests the Inspector General to indicate whether such information was the basis (in whole or in part) for the action, was not, or whether such basis may not be disclosed (in which case it is deemed not to have been).