A top Wall Street regulator is making moves that could lead to the ouster of its inspector general after an independent probe found he had disclosed the identities of whistleblowers, wasted money and disparaged agency employees.
(Bloomberg) — A top Wall Street regulator is making moves that could lead to the ouster of its inspector general after an independent probe found he had disclosed the identities of whistleblowers, wasted money and disparaged agency employees.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is taking initial steps to put Inspector General A. Roy Lavik on administrative leave, according to people with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be identified discussing internal agency deliberations. The effort follows a February report from a panel of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, a government entity that serves as the watchdog of the federal watchdogs.
The commission plans to take next steps in the process of removing him in the coming weeks and has informed the House and Senate Agriculture committees of its actions, according to the people familiar with the matter. Those panels have oversight over the CFTC. No final decision has been made.
Lavik, who has held his post for decades, and the Office of the Inspector General didn’t respond to requests for comment. The CFTC declined to comment.
The CIGIE panel had received multiple complaints about Lavik from December 2018 and expanded its probe in 2021 to look into other areas, according its February report. The panel of the CIGIE found that Lavik “grossly” mismanaged his office and engaged in “substantial misconduct” when he disclosed internal whistleblowers’ identities by sharing unredacted copies of inspector general reports with Congress and commissioners, the panel found.
Lavik disagreed that he had violated whistleblower protections, making the argument that those parties “are entitled to unredacted reports from his office,” the CIGIE panel wrote. The report’s authors said federal law strictly prohibits inspectors general from publicly disclosing information that would identify employee whistleblowers without their consent.
“It’s shocking IG Lavik has been able to keep this job for over 30 years,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. “Even more disturbing is his effort to justify the endangerment of the whistleblowers as legitimate.”
Consultant
Lavik also spent more than $165,000 to keep a consultant — a former CFTC inspector-general employee — on retainer for almost two years without requiring the person to produce any work, according to the report.
Lavik was also found to have made disparaging comments about CFTC employees. On one occasion, according to the report, a colleague said that Lavik discussed an employee’s fitness for the job and angrily said, “I want to f*** her.”
The inspector general said he wouldn’t have used the expletive, according to the report. But in the report, the investigators said their surprise when Lavik then asked them, “Have you seen her?”
Lavik disputed the finding, saying his private discussions with staff were supposed to remain private, according to the report.
The report, signed by Kevin Winters, chairman of the council’s Integrity Committee and Amtrak’s inspector general, recommended that the CFTC take disciplinary action “up to and including” removing Lavik from his post.
(Updates with details from report in fifth paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.