Barings Bank’s collapse, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion – it took a series of scandals and fatal tragedies for the government to finally develop regulation in 1998 to protect whistleblowers: the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA).
To receive protection under the act, whistleblowers must make ‘qualified disclosures’ that are in the public interest; a complex and fact-dependent test.
These must show concerns about breaches of civil, criminal, regulatory or administrative law, miscarriages of justice, dangers to health, safety and environment, and a cover-up of misconduct.
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Clive Howard, |
“The one in financial services that we rely on is that the person believes there has been a failure to comply with the legal obligations,” says Clive Howard, an employment lawyer at Slater and Gordon. It is essential to demonstrate a breach of law, not just company policy.
“The problem people face is showing a breach of a legal obligation. Often in financial services, the whistleblower’s focus tends to be on internal rules operated by the bank, such as a failure to document trades or do them in a certain way.”
This is something of a grey area, as often an employer will argue its own internal rules are in line with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) requirements, but they are not legal rules.