On World Whistleblowing Day (23 June 2025), Brendan Weekes, Associate Director at S&W and member of the ICAEW’s Ethics Standards Committee, explains the little understood obligations for professional accountants in the event of any suspected non-compliance.
“I think we should pay whistleblowers.”
This statement, made by Serious Fraud Office Director Nick Ephgrave in February last year, marked a sea change in how the UK approaches whistleblowing. Ephgrave cited the US as an example of good whistleblowing policy, where 86% of the civil settlements and judgments recovered by the US Department of Justice in 2022 were based on whistleblower information.
In March 2025, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray, announced that later this year HMRC will launch a new reward scheme for informants, targeting serious non-compliance in large corporates, wealthy individuals, offshore and avoidance schemes. The scheme will take inspiration from US and Canadian ‘whistleblower models’, rewarding informants with a percentage of any tax taken as a result of their actions.
These two speeches illustrate the changing approach of UK regulators when it comes to obtaining evidence from whistleblowers that may lead to successful prosecutions in the public interest. They can be seen in the context of recent legislative changes introduced by the Economic Crime and Transparency Act 2023, which makes it simpler to prosecute companies.
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