Whistleblowing in the workplace – what you need to know
Whistleblowing is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of good corporate culture. Effective whistleblowing procedures can facilitate the early identification of problems within a business and enable them to be addressed before they develop into a crisis. In the financial services sector, for example, the requirement for firms to appoint “whistleblowers’ champion” is a key feature of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime. However, the exact requirements of a whistleblowing regime are not prescribed and different arrangements may be appropriate for different firms.
Our chapter
We are pleased to have contributed a chapter to the sixth edition of GIR’s The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations on Whistleblowers: The UK Perspective.
The chapter is authored by Alison Wilson, Sinead Casey, Elly Proudlock and Nick Marshall, lawyers in our Dispute Resolution and Employment and Incentives practices. In it the authors review the different expectations of bodies such as the Financial Conduct Authority, the Serious Fraud Office and the Competition and Markets Authority, and how businesses can ensure their whistleblowing procedures conform to appropriate standards. Practical aspects, such as protecting anonymity and the conduct of any internal investigation, are considered, together with specific issues arising in cross-border cases. Legal and professional obligations are also reviewed.
The chapter “Whistleblowers: The UK Perspective”, is available to read and download here. The chapter is an extract from the sixth edition of The Practitioner’s Guide to Global. The whole publication is available here.
Our Webinar
In the seventh webinar in our Global Business Crime Outlook series, Linklaters’ lawyers Nicola Rabson, Laure de Panafieu, Satindar Dogra and Michael Lamson were joined by Elizabeth Gardner, Chief Executive at Protect, to review current trends in workplace investigations. The discussion included consideration of recent themes in whistleblowing complaints, investigations involving alleged criminal conduct and learnings from virtual investigations for the “hybrid world”.
The webinar is available to watch here.
