BRITAIN’S Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is developing plans to reward whistleblowers who report economic crimes such as fraud and bribery, the government said.
The move would bring Britain closer to the US model, where financial incentives have been used to encourage people to come forward with evidence of wrongdoing for more than a decade.
Britain has for years debated whether to pay whistleblowers for information. Last year, the tax authority HM Revenue & Customs introduced the country’s first US-style reward scheme, offering informants up to 30% of tax recovered in major tax cases.
The shift has been driven by the success of overseas programmes, particularly the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower regime, for which UK nationals are the second-largest overseas user group, the government said.
“We welcome this consultation, having long called for the introduction of a scheme to incentivise whistleblowers. We encourage all those with a view to contribute to the consultation and we look forward to working with our government partners on next steps,” a spokesperson for the SFO said.
The change was recommended in a July 2026 review of fraud prosecutions led by lawyer Jonathan Fisher, who said Britain was losing valuable intelligence as whistleblowers chose to report wrongdoing to US authorities that offer financial rewards.
Former SFO Director Nick Ephgrave said in 2024 that paying corporate insiders to provide “smoking gun...
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