A recent report (open access) by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) concluded that it is beneficial to financially reward whistleblowers, and recommends a UK consultation to bring in the necessary legislation. The conclusions were strongly supported by Nick Ephgrave, Director of the Serious Fraud Office, at the report’s launch event on 10 December.
Many jurisdictions already have such schemes. For example, in the US, the Department of Justice is running a 3 year pilot to reward whistleblowers with a percentage of forfeited proceeds. The scheme is targeted at, but not exclusive to, frauds involving bribery and currency offences. It is only triggered if the whistleblower’s information leads to a forfeiture above $1 million USD.
The legal and corporate cultural landscape is very different in the UK compared to the US, and the RUSI report makes the point that any national whistleblower reward scheme needs to be tailored rather than a “cut-and-paste” from another jurisdiction. Rewards are just one facet of a successful whistleblower scheme and the report makes many more detailed recommendations.
