Monsanto Whistleblower Gets $22 Million

A former Monsanto Co. executive who tipped the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to accounting improprieties involving the company’s top-selling Roundup product has been awarded more than $22 million from the agency’s whistleblower program, the executive’s lawyer said on Tuesday.

The $22 million award – the agency’s second largest under the program – was tied to an $80 million settlement between the SEC and Monsanto in February, according to the lawyer, Stuart Meissner in New York, in a statement.

Awards to whistleblowers by the SEC’s program have now surpassed a total of $107 million since the agency launched the program in 2011, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday. The largest award, in 2014, was $30 million, the agency said.

Meissner declined to reveal the whistleblower’s identity.

A Monsanto representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)