Ever since the establishment of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) whistleblower rewards program, there has been a steady increase in the number of foreign whistleblowers coming to the U.S. government to report a whistleblower tip. According to SEC data, the United Kingdom ranks first in whistleblower tips provided to the SEC. From 2011 to 2021, the SEC received 5,044 whistleblower tips from foreign nationals, and 699 were from the United Kingdom.
The reasons many foreign nationals use the SEC whistleblower program are threefold:
No or poor whistleblower protection in their country.
Most importantly, these legal procedures are not exclusive to American citizens or residents. Foreign whistleblowers can also obtain anonymity and awards.
The UK’s central whistleblower law has long been criticized for inadequate protections for whistleblowers. Despite being the first European whistleblower law, UK’s Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) not only has been a colossal failure for UK citizens, but it has also become one of the UK’s most dangerous exports as dozens of countries worldwide have used PIDA as a guide. In general, PIDA lacks the capacity to protect employees from retaliation. Employees even have to open their employment records and personal life to public scrutiny, resulting in severe retaliation and expensive and drawn-out court proceedings against their employer.
According to a report from the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Blueprint for Free...
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