WASHINGTON, D.C. | December 10, 2024 — Today, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) released its highly anticipated report on the efficacy of North American whistleblower award programs, “The Role of Financial Rewards for Whistleblowers in the Fight Against Economic Crime.” The release of the seminal report was accompanied by a panel discussion dissecting key takeaways from the report and imminent policy implications for UK Whistleblower Law, including the implementation of a pilot award program. This panel session is available for viewing here.
The preeminent report concludes that whistleblower award programs in the United States and Canada unequivocally increase both the number of whistleblower disclosures to government regulatory agencies, and the quality of the information in such disclosures, decisively dispelling long-held misconceptions about whistleblower award programs.
In the panel session, Eliza Lockhart, author of the report and Research Fellow at the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, enumerated four key takeaways from her research, including that award programs not only increase the number and quality of whistleblower disclosures, but that they also deter financial crime and strengthen internal compliance as well. She also concludes that such programs operate most successfully when backed by a well-resourced Office of the Whistleblower and are bolstered by stronger whistleblower protections like anonymity, confidentiality, and anti-retaliation policies.
The RUSI Report upends previous research about whistleblower awards coming out of the UK, which has established the policy as ineffective, if not counterproductive, and countercultural. In both her report and the accompanying panel session, Lockhart addressed the cultural difference surrounding whistleblowing between North American countries and countries that oppose award systems, like Great Britian and Australia. Lockhart concluded that this cultural perception needed to shift from viewing whistleblowing as an “altruistic act of a moralistic individual to the provision of an intelligence service” if the country hoped to create policies, like awards schemes, that could redress issues within their whistleblower system, such as the exodus of whistleblowers to US regulatory agencies and the general lack of whistleblower disclosures.
Ultimately, the report holds major implications for the future of whistleblower policy in the UK, giving promise to an awards pilot program in the near future. Panel speaker Nick Ephgrave from the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) expressed his profound content with this prospect, stating this cultural and legislative shift is what his office needs to effectively prosecute financial crime in the UK. Ephgrave also expressed his discontent with cultural hang-ups to providing whistleblower awards, responding to critics’ arguments stating that it is also “not British to deny our people justice. Neither is it not British to prevent the treasury from benefitting from the fines” whistleblower disclosures can bring about.
National Whistleblower Center Board Chairman Stephen M. Kohn was a key consultant in the drafting of the RUSI report and his firm, Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, is cited consistently throughout the report. In regard to the report’s release, Kohn commented that it is “a timely and important study. It puts to rest the negative stereotypes that have for years harmed the implementation of effective whistleblowers laws,” concluding that “whistleblowing works, and needs to play a central role in detecting and fighting corruption worldwide.”
NWC Board Chairman Stephen M. Kohn is available for comment. For more information, contact NWC at info@whistleblowers.org.
* * *
NWC is the leading nonprofit working with whistleblowers worldwide to fight corruption and protect people and the environment. For over 30 years, NWC has won policies to protect whistleblowers from retaliation and reward them for helping deliver criminal and civil penalties against wrongdoers.
