The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday awarded nearly $2.5 million to a government worker who helped regulators launch an investigation and eventually crack down on a company's misconduct, the first such whistleblower bounty issued to an employee of a government agency.

As is typical in these cases, the SEC offered no identifying details about the employee, the government agency, or the company the individual blew the whistle on.

But in an unusual move, the commission offered a detailed discussion in the order's footnotes of when a government employee can and cannot receive a whistleblower award under the Dodd-Frank Act. And this one appears to have been a somewhat close call.