By Nick Marshall, Partner, Employment & Incentives Practice, and Adam Lurie, Partner and Head of Litigation, Arbitration & Investigations, Linklaters
Not long ago, the word whistleblowing was synonymous with troublemaking. Too often, fears of raising concerns and risks of retaliation meant that wrongdoing went unchallenged, sometimes with tragic consequences. However, the influences of greater legal protections and changes in society more generally have created a subtle but positive shift in how whistleblowers are perceived. The whistleblower’s value in exposing wrongdoing and his or her place as a key pillar of good governance are now widely recognised and embraced.
The evolution of whistleblowing
As the 25th anniversary of the United Kingdom’s whistleblowing laws approaches, the landscape is now very different from what it once was. The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 marked the UK as a pioneer in its protection of whistleblowers at a time when many European countries had no specific legal protections in place. But cultural changes did not happen overnight. The 2008 financial crisis was a stark reminder of how people continued to turn a blind eye to misconduct and failed to report it.
Recognising whistleblowers’ critical roles in exposing poor practices, the UK’s financial services regulators, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), announced their own detailed rules on whistleblowing in 2015. Despite an...
Hyderabad: BRS leader Aedla Sudhakar Reddy strongly criticised the statements of HYDRAA commissioner A.V. Ranganath regarding the status of Bathukammakunta. The official had claimed that the place...