The US Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced it is launching a pilot program for individual whistleblowers who report wrongdoing to it. It supplements the programs already underway at the SEC and Commodities Futures Commission – but it might not be the last one to be announced this year.

The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has also announced its intention to pay financial bounties to whistleblowers; SFO Director Nick Ephgrave said as much in a February 13, 2024 speech.

Ephgrave explained that, under his leadership, the SFO will continue to be focused on investigating and prosecuting fraud, will increase its collaboration with its law enforcement partners, and “will become an organization that is characterized by its strength, its dynamism, its confidence and its pragmatism.” 

He said that he understood that for the SFO to moving its investigations through more quickly, it “needs to focus on intelligence and the information that we gather at the outset.”  

“Put the incentivization of witnesses and better use of the assisting offenders legislation together, and we have the building blocks for a much quicker and more efficient way of dealing with big cases.” 

Nick Ephgrave, Director, SFO

Ephgrave cited the success of the SEC’s Whistleblower Program as an example. Data from that Program’s annual reports to Congress shows that the UK has consistently ranked among the top foreign countries from which the highest number of whistleblower tips originates. Since 2011, over 700 UK nationals have engaged with US law enforcement as whistleblowers.

And he referenced the UK’s Serious Organized Crime and Police Act, a law designed to allow the SFO “to encourage assisting offenders to progress our investigations” with “a reasonably decent reduction in sentence. 

“Put those two things together, the incentivization of witnesses and better use of the assisting offenders legislation, and we have the building blocks for a much quicker and more efficient way of dealing with big cases.” 

Shortly after delivering this speech, Ephgrave visited senior officials at the DOJ’s Criminal Division, the Southern District of New York US Attorney’s Office (which served as a blueprint for the DOJ’s pilot program), and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. He said: “I aspire for us to be the collaboration partner of choice, both in this country and abroad.”

UK government initiatives

The UK government has been examining its whistleblowing framework more broadly.

In January, MP Mary Robinson, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Whistleblowing, recently presented a whistleblowing bill to the House of Commons. The UK’s current whistleblowing protection law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA), has been criticized by whistleblower advocates as being too limited in scope. It applies only to employment law and only workers who speak out against employers, and not against suppliers and contractors.

The legal hurdles of PIDA also pose a burden. It applies only to those who make a “protected disclosure,” and the person has to prove they had a reasonable basis for raising the relevant concern. If the person suffered a “detriment,” they can bring their case before an employment tribunal – but it is a costly process that does not allow for the recovery of legal fees and anonymity is not promised.

The Whistleblowing Act, which would replace PIDA, would establish an independent Office of the Whistleblower whose principal duty would be “to protect whistleblowers and have oversight of the process of whistleblowing,” according to the bill. The act aims to transform whistleblowing protections in the UK by making it an offense to retaliate against whistleblowers, fail to act, or cover up wrongdoing.

Specifically, the Office of the Whistleblower would serve to do the following:

• Set minimum standards for whistleblowing policies, procedures, and reporting structures;
• Monitor and enforce organizations’ compliance with those standards;
• Bring prosecutions for offenses specified in the bill;
• Provide an independent disclosure and reporting service, information, and advice on whistleblowing, and otherwise provide support for whistleblowers; and
• Share information with relevant agencies in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Possible CFPB program?

Back in the US, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) might have a program that rewards whistleblowers at some point as well. Last June, a bill introduced by Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) would provide for incentives to whistleblowers who come forward to the CFPB to report fraud against consumers. The “Financial Compensation for CFPB Whistleblowers Act” would have much of the same framework as the SEC’s program.

A companion bill is also sitting in the US House; Representative Al Green (D-TX) introduced a bill last year as well, designed for the CFPB.

Just as the SEC’s program has helped people report fraud in the buying and selling of securities, the proposed bills are designed to help consumers who were the victims of federal consumer law breaches. (Note: The CFPB has a whistleblower program; it just has no reward system for such tips right now.)

Recent whistleblowing cases

What could be on a lot of these people’s minds are the notable cases that have gotten a lot of attention recently, thanks to whistleblower reports at Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems, Tesla, Theranos and many others.

Lawmakers meet with these individuals and investigations can truly be fueled on the unique information they provide, while saving the government significant resources by adding efficiency to their reviews. Motivating people to come forward and sharing more publicly exactly how their tips have saved money and even lives has also proven helpful in reducing the stigma of sharing tips, as the aid they provide has become more quantifiable and recognized over time.

The results of the program can be seen in the billions of dollars the SEC has collected as a result of the tips it has received. The enforcement data backs up these arguments even more convincingly.

The SEC received 18,354 tips and awarded nearly $600m in fiscal year 2023, the highest annual amount in the program’s history and more than double the figure in the prior fiscal year. Many of them started out as whistleblower tips, the SEC has pointed out.

And as hinted above in Ephgrave’s remarks, the SEC recently boasted that its whistleblower program has truly became “fundamentally international in character,” with the most non-domestic reports arriving from Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, and India.