Still blowing it with whistleblowers

There is plenty of lip service to the importance of systems that allow people to speak up safely when they know of wrongdoing, but this remains an area that firms often get wrong. Anna Battams discusses a roundup of the UK’s biggest financial services whistleblowing scandals.

Anna Battams is an associate at Collyer Bristow who specialises in banking and finance as well as other commercial disputes. Contact her on anna.battams@collyerbristow.com.

In recent years, there has been a growing number of scandals in the United Kingdom’s financial services industry, many of which involved a whistleblower who was ignored or mistreated. While there is no doubt that whistleblowers play an important role in the sector, these recent cases highlight that both firms and regulators have repeatedly failed to deal with whistleblower disclosure appropriately and, in many cases, this has led to very severe consequences for investors.