A British watchdog group has launched a probe after the suicide of the man who exposed emails exchanged between disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and current U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
The Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (BFCA) said it will examine its interactions with whistleblower Simon Andriesz and evaluate how it works with whistleblowers and other vulnerable people going forward.
"We are very sorry to hear of Mr. Andriesz's death," an FCA spokespoerson said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Since expressing our condolences, we have asked Lea Paterson, who has just joined our board as a non-executive director, to review how we interacted with Mr. Andriesz to learn any lessons for the future."
The FCA said that it expects the probe to be completed by the end of the year and provide recommendations for how to best support whistleblowers in the future.
Andriesz's representative, John Robertson, said, "Simon spent years trying to get people to listen. The tragedy is that the serious questions are only being asked now that he is gone."
Andriesz, a British banker who once worked under Lutnick, died months after he alerted the House Oversight Committee of emails Epstein and Lutnick exchanged in 2018 about a digital advertising company they were both invested in called Adfin.
Andriesz...
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