The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made the first payout from its new whistleblower programme under the post-crunch Dodd-Frank reforms, reports Corporate Counsel.

The $50,000 (£31,000) payout was made to an unidentified person who helped stop a multimillion-dollar financial fraud. The law prohibits the agency from releasing details that could identify the claimant.

Sean McKessy, head of the SEC's whistleblower office, said in a statement that since the programme was established in August 2011, his office has been receiving around eight tips a day. "The fact that we made the first payment after just one year of operation shows that we are open for business and ready to pay people who bring us good, timely information," McKessy noted.

The initial payout could eventually reach a total of more than $300,000 (£189,000) or more, as the whistleblower is entitled to 30% of the sanctions as they are collected. The court in this case ordered more than $1m (£630,000) in sanctions, of which so far $150,000 (£94,000) has been collected.

Lyle Roberts, a securities litigation partner in Cooley's Washington DC office, pointed to the significance of hints that the SEC had made regarding future cases.

"The bigger news out of this is the volume of calls they're getting, and what type of calls those are," Roberts said. "They claim a lot of these calls are of high quality and drop hints that unlike this first payout, which seems more of a vanilla case, some callers are corporate insiders who are aggressively giving them information about corporate problems," he said.

Roberts conceded there's not a lot that a general counsel can do at this point – "other than making sure your internal compliance systems and internal whistleblowing systems are working [so as to avoid] being part of one of those tips."

James Curtis, a partner in Chicago office of Seyfarth Shaw and a member of its whistleblower legal team, said GCs need to be mindful of the gap between the growing number of retaliation lawsuits brought by whistleblowers and the number of suits actually concluded.

The problem, he said, is that this means the number of whistleblowers who remain on the job is growing significantly, creating an unsettling environment for employers. "It has created a minefield out there for general counsel and they need to be real careful where they're stepping," he added.

Corporate Counsel is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.