Is it time for the UK to consider financial rewards for whistleblowers? John Bowers QC weighs up the pros & cons
- Offering monetary rewards to those who blow the whistle, as in the US, has thus far had a lukewarm reception in the UK, with concerns surrounding motivations and increased antagonism.
- However, it is clearly desirable—both morally and economically—to encourage whistleblowers to come forward, and the possibility of reward may provide more of a reason to do so.
Bradley C Birkenfeld, a former banker at UBS, served two and a half years in prison for conspiring with a wealthy California developer to evade United States income taxes. He was convicted of fraud for withholding crucial information from federal investigators, including details of his top client, the property developer Igor Olenicoff.
Yet, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made Birkenfeld’s post-prison life just a little bit easier by granting him in 2012 a reward of $104m for whistleblowing—not for blowing the whistle on his own activities, but by divulging the schemes that UBS used to encourage American citizens to dodge their taxes.
