The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday morning that an SEC attorney “inadvertently revealed the identity” of a whistleblower to his former employer during an investigation of Pipeline Trading Systems LLC.

The whistleblower, Peter Earle, worked at Milstream Strategy Group LLC, a Pipeline-affiliated trading entity. Pipeline recently paid $1 million to settle SEC charges alleging that the company failed to disclose to customers of its “dark pool” trading platform that Milstream was filling most of the orders.

Earle provided the SEC with a notebook in early 2010 after he had left the company that helped guide the agency’s investigation. Later that year, Daniel Walfish—an attorney at the SEC’s New York Regional Office—provided Earle’s notebook to Gordon Henderson, who headed up Milstream. Henderson—who already had suspicions about Earle—was easily able to recognize Earle’s handwriting, according to the Journal.

It’s a total accident! It’s a complete coincidence, you see, that the lawyer who was formerly employed by Pipeline Trading Systems LLC was the one who leaked the name of their whistle-blower. It’s an even greater coincidence that it’s happened before [PDF]! The biggest coincidence at all is that one one ever gets punished for these leaks [PDF again].

(Source: govtoversight, via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity-deacti)

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) must pay $930,000 to an employee who uncovered fraud at Countrywide Financial Corp. and was fired in violation of whistleblower protections, the U.S. Department of Labor said.

The employee was terminated soon after the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank took over Countrywide in 2008, the agency said today in astatement. The worker, who must also be reinstated, led internal investigations that found “pervasive wire, mail and bank fraud involving Countrywide employees,” according to the release.

“It’s clear from our investigation that Bank of America used illegal retaliatory tactics against this employee,” said David Michaels, assistant secretary of the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in the statement. “This employee showed great courage reporting potential fraud and standing up for the rights of other employees.”

Bank of American insists that they took issue with her management style (coincidentally at the exact same time frame as she blew the whistle, with no complaints before that). They’ve got 30 days to appeal, but it’s nice to see the system occasionally doing it’s job and refusing to kowtow to financial interests.