Syed Rahman examines proposals to pay whistleblowers in FT Adviser

Rahman Ravelli Partner Syed Rahman has written for FT Adviser about proposals to introduce financial rewards for whistleblowers who provide information relating to fraud, bribery and other forms of economic crime.

In the article, Syed considers recommendations made by Jonathan Fisher KC, who has called on the government to consult on paying whistleblowers as part of wider efforts to improve the detection and prosecution of fraud.

The proposals could encourage more individuals to report wrongdoing, improve corporate culture and increase the number of companies seeking to resolve matters with the Serious Fraud Office.

However, Syed argues that a whistleblower reward scheme would only be effective if the SFO has the resources, technology and investigative capacity needed to respond to the information it receives.

He highlights the collapse of the SFO’s London Mining prosecution and the subsequent discovery that almost 600,000 items of evidence had been missed because of outdated e-discovery software. The agency also announced that disclosure would need to be reviewed in a further 20 cases.

Syed also considers how the proposed whistleblower scheme could interact with recent changes to the corporate criminal liability landscape, including the failure to prevent fraud offence and section 196 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.

He concludes that paid whistleblowing could provide the SFO with valuable intelligence, but it will only offer value for money if the agency is equipped to investigate and act on that information effectively.

Read Syed’s full article in FT Adviser.

Featured at: FT Adviser