The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's whistleblower program has taken off since its creation in 2010 from the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, awarding more than $150 million in bounties to tipsters who have helped the agency bring successful enforcement actions. Last year, the SEC's enforcement director at the time, Andrew Ceresney, called the whistleblower office a “game changer” for the agency.

But as that office has doled out awards and taken steps to protect whistleblowers, a question has loomed large over the agency: To be eligible for the anti-retaliation protections embedded in Dodd-Frank, must a corporate insider contact the SEC or is it enough to only report internally to an employer?

Central to the question is Dodd-Frank's definition of a whistleblower as someone who brings information “to the commission.” The SEC has taken a broad view of whistleblower protections, interpreting the law to extend also to employees who only report internally. But companies, fighting to shut down the retaliation claims of fired employees, have argued the protections don't extend to those who only bring concerns to their employers. Those differing views have divided the federal appeals courts. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the dispute.