In late February, a judge from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York approved a settlement where a former executive and analyst cooperated with the SEC in a widespread insider trading investigation. 

The SEC agreed that, given the cooperation, there was no need to impose a small penalty.  As such, these employees, who provided substantive information on expert networking firms to the SEC, were, therefore, rewarded.

It appears that the SEC is following through on its promise to allow for cooperation to be a benchmark in avoiding certain penalties.