Erika A. Kelton

The Client No One Could Name

In September 2014, the SEC announced an expected award of more than $30 million — to a whistleblower living outside the United States, whose name would never be spoken. The client was Erika A. Kelton's, and the payment ultimately fell between $30 million and $35 million based on sanctions collected in a covered action and related actions.

The Commission found that the claimant voluntarily supplied original information about an ongoing fraud that was difficult to detect and provided assistance that led to successful enforcement. Just as important was what the Commission found did not matter: residence abroad, an overseas submission, and misconduct occurring overseas did not disqualify the claim, because the information led to a United States SEC action enforcing United States securities law. The decision distinguished the award provisions from Dodd-Frank's employment anti-retaliation provision and confirmed that an eligible international claimant could recover within the statutory range of ten to thirty percent of qualifying sanctions exceeding $1 million.

Two Voices, One Record

In January 2022, the SEC announced approximately $37 million for two joint whistleblowers Kelton represented. The agency found that they supplied key evidence that significantly contributed to its investigation and charges, helped staff understand the evidence and locate more of it, and kept assisting as the matter progressed.

The final order stretched across two proceedings — the SEC enforcement action and another agency's related action built on the same original information. The Commission credited the significance of the evidence, the continuing assistance, the internal reporting, and the law-enforcement interests; treated the applicants as joint claimants; preserved their net award percentage across both actions; and directed how the combined payment would be split.

Advancing an Examination

A June 2024 final order awarded Kelton's client twenty-three percent of qualifying sanctions — approximately $3.7 million — for information that significantly contributed to an SEC examination: new and useful facts, additional requests to the respondent, support for a referral and enforcement findings, continuing cooperation, and a voluntary interview.

The submission carried a complication that tested the craft. Some supporting attachments were marked privileged and confidential, so the SEC's Office of Market Intelligence sequestered them. Examination staff worked from the claimant's complaint-form responses without seeing the protected attachments, and the review produced a redacted version for the investigative team — preserving the privilege claim and the client's anonymity at the same time.

The False Claims Foundation

Before the SEC program existed, Kelton was already building whistleblower cases against the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. She was lead attorney for Phillips & Cohen's qui tam whistleblowers in the healthcare-fraud matter that contributed to GlaxoSmithKline's $3 billion resolution in 2012. She also represented the whistleblower whose Bextra allegations formed the largest component of Pfizer's $2.3 billion resolution in 2009 — cases that proceeded under the False Claims Act through relator evidence and government investigation.

Anonymity as Craft

SEC Rule 21F-7 permits an anonymous claimant to proceed only through an attorney. Counsel verifies the claimant's identity, retains the signed declaration the rule requires, and serves as the agency's point of contact while the claimant remains unnamed. After a successful enforcement action, the SEC publishes notice of a covered action and opens a ninety-day window — and counsel must establish eligibility, connect voluntarily supplied original information to the action, document the claimant's assistance, and address every factor governing an award. A related-action claim must also tie another authority's proceeding to the same original information.

Kelton's matters each demanded a distinct showing: international eligibility, coordination of two joint claims across related actions, and proof that new information materially advanced an existing examination. Each concluded with an award — and with the client's identity intact.

Current Practice

Kelton is a partner at Phillips & Cohen in Washington. Her practice includes False Claims Act litigation, SEC and CFTC whistleblower submissions, international claims, related actions, privilege review, and anonymous representation carried all the way through final payment.

She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and has taught whistleblower law at New York University and Berkeley.