(a) Any award made pursuant to these rules will be paid from the Securities and Exchange Commission Investor Protection Fund (the “Fund”).
(b) A recipient of a whistleblower award is entitled to payment on the award only to the extent that a monetary sanction is collected in the Commission action or in a related action upon which the award is based.
(c) Payment of a whistleblower award for a monetary sanction collected in a Commission action or related action shall be made following the later of:
(1) The date on which the monetary sanction is collected; or
(2) The completion of the appeals process for all whistleblower award claims arising from:
(i) The Notice of Covered Action, in the case of any payment of an award for a monetary sanction collected in a Commission action; or
(ii) The related action, in the case of any payment of an award for a monetary sanction collected in a related action.
(d) If there are insufficient amounts available in the Fund to pay the entire amount of an award payment within a reasonable period of time from the time for payment specified by paragraph (c) of this section, then subject to the following terms, the balance of the payment shall be paid when amounts become available in the Fund, as follows:
(1) Where multiple whistleblowers are owed payments from the Fund based on awards that do not arise from the same Notice of Covered Action (or related action), priority in making these payments will be determined based upon the date that the collections for which the whistleblowers are owed payments occurred. If two or more of these collections occur on the same date, those whistleblowers owed payments based on these collections will be paid on a pro rata basis until sufficient amounts become available in the Fund to pay their entire payments.
(2) Where multiple whistleblowers are owed payments from the Fund based on awards that arise from the same Notice of Covered Action (or related action), they will share the same payment priority and will be paid on a pro rata basis until sufficient amounts become available in the Fund to pay their entire payments.