…Mr. Burris avoided what he considered unsuitable, expensive and underperforming investment products, including some offered by JPMorgan, which drew criticism from his bosses. Troubled that he was being pressured to push JPMorgan’s products rather than act in his clients’ best interests, he went so far as to secretly record his colleagues. He complained repeatedly to his supervisors….

But in raising questions about how the bank was pressuring him and other brokers to sell its own mutual funds, Mr. Burris appears to have been onto something. JPMorgan is on the brink of paying as much as $200 million to resolve S.E.C. claims that it failed to make adequate disclosures when its brokers promoted its own products.

That may mean a big payday for Mr. Burris. If the S.E.C. deems he gave it “original information” the leads to a successful enforcement action, he and any other whistle-blowers cooperating in this case would be entitled to a bounty of 10 to 30 percent of the sanction collected. On $200 million, that would mean an award of $20 million to $60 million.