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As the awards made under the IRS whistleblower program have dipped, and relator’scounsel and even members of Congress have expressed concerns over the interestand ability of the IRS to administer the program effectively, it is unclear whether thisprogram will continue to generate significant numbers of whistleblower reports andawards in the coming years.II.Proactive Management of Whistleblower RiskUnderstanding the array of laws and programs available to whistleblowers, it issimplistic to offer the old saw that companies exposed to risk need to ensure they haveeffective ethics and compliance programs. Everyone knows that. The challenge is toaddress the peculiar area of whistleblowers with the benefit of meaningful and practicalinsights on what will really serve to reduce risk of whistleblower claims and attendantexposure to penalties and other adverse consequences.There is a legion of guidance and other information available on the definition ofeffective corporate compliance 35 , and the basic elements of good compliance arebeyond the subject of this article.In any case, the problem exposed by companies subjected to whistleblower controversyis typically not that the organization lacked a corporate ethics and compliance program.Indeed, it is now a rare event for a significant company to lack an operating complianceprogram that generally satisfies the Sentencing Guidelines and other key complianceguidance. So what is it that tends to be missing as the ongoing wave of whistleblower35See e.g., Federal Principles of Prosecution of Organizations athttp://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/corp-charging-guidelines.pdf; Federal Sentencing Guidelines athttp://www.ussc.gov/Legal/Amendments/Reader- Friendly/20130430_RF_Amendments.pdf; FCPAGuidance at http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/guide.pdf.13