The City regulator has been accused of firing a whistleblower who alleged “serious wrongdoing” in his own team, an employment tribunal has been told.
Ahmet Latif, 64, claims he was fired from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) after revealing “a number of matters of serious wrongdoing” relating to the treatment of Freedom of Information Act requests.
The East London Employment Tribunal this week heard how Mr Latif complained that his 12-person team which dealt with FOI requests was “stretched and under-resourced” and “did not appear to have been effectively managed since 2017”.
The court heard how the authority was allegedly “struggling to process” 1,000 cases per year despite the Metropolitan Police dealing with 4,500 with a similar size team, with up to eight sign-offs needed for relatively routine FOI requests.
According to a witness statement, an internal FCA report in 2020 also flagged concerns that “teams like the CEO’s office and press office are making interventions in a significant number of cases in trying to ensure that damaging disclosures are not made”.
It added that there could be “excessive numbers of emails back and forth between various stakeholders, sometimes making the issues increasingly incomprehensible”. The FCA denies any wrongdoing.
Mr Latif, who worked at the regulator between December 2019 and February 2023, claimed he “repeatedly” raised concerns with his line manager.
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