Nick Ephgrave, the Director of the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is continuing to call for the implementation of a whistleblower award program in the UK. In recent days, Ephgrave has made a number of comments about the need for financial incentives for whistleblowers and the impact it would have on efforts to combat white collar crime.
Ephgrave first called for the implementation of whistleblower awards in February, when in his first public speech after taking over the SFO, he stated “I think we should pay whistleblowers” after noting that the whistleblower award laws in the U.S. have been incredibly effective. He specifically pointed to the U.S. Department of Justice which reports that 86% of civil settlements under the False Claims Act result from whistleblower disclosures thanks to the law’s whistleblower award provisions.
While U.S. whistleblower award programs have revolutionized the detection, enforcement, and deterrence of white collar crime, the UK has historically been resistant to the idea of whistleblower awards. As a whole, the UK’s current whistleblower system under the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) has been widely criticized by advocates.
Released on December 10, a landmark report by the prestigious UK think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) adds extensive research and strong empirical evidence towards the calls for whistleblower awards in the UK. According to the report, the UK should end its “long-held antipathy” towards paying whistleblowers because such a program could play a “pivotal role” in reducing white-collar offences.
During the event launching the report, Ephgrave made further comments in support of whistleblower awards, noting that they could be a potential intervention in trying to solve a problem of “intelligence drain” with would-be whistleblowers in the UK looking to report to U.S. authorities instead of the SFO.
He said, “We know that many, many hundreds of whistleblowers have chosen to go abroad to blow the whistle, because there is simply no incentive they can do that here…That means that we don’t get the benefit of bringing those individuals or corporations to justice in this country. We don’t benefit financially from the fines and their compensation can come from successful convictions, and it means that people in my office are still scrambling around in the dark.”
In a December 8 interview with The Telegraph, Ephgrave further advocated for whistleblower awards.
“You’re not going to get the information you need unless there is at least some protection,” he explained. “And we do have, of course, statutory protection for whistleblowers in this country, but that falls short of any kind of financial protection.”
He further noted that ““We know that there are very effective programs elsewhere, the exemplar is in the United States.”
In a December 10 interview with the Global Investigations Review, he decried the “complete schizophrenia” around the idea of whistleblower awards in the UK. According to GIR, he “said he has not heard many compelling arguments against paying whistleblowers besides the ‘argument of last resort, which is to put the Union Jack up and say: ‘It’s not British’.’”
Further Reading:
In Major Breakthrough, UK Think Tank Calls for Whistleblower Awards