Blowing The Whistle. What’s Wrong With Corporate Culture? – Employment and HR

Nobody goes into their workplace hoping to discover wrongdoing.
Yet if an individual does discover a serious issue, such as
financial impropriety or a safety violation, their next steps could
define the rest of their career – perhaps the rest of their
lives.

“Organisations are awash with mission statements,
values and speak up policies,” says Meriel Schindler, lead
partner in Withers’ London employment team. “Everyone
talks about transparency. But when someone raises something that is
uncomfortable, those in charge don’t always welcome
it.”

Few whistleblowing cases ever become public, but Meriel’s
experience suggests that the vast majority follow the pattern of
well-known examples such as Sherron Watkins, a former Enron vice
president who highlighted accounting fraud and corruption to its
chief executive, who immediately sought advice on how to fire
her.

One whistleblower consulted us after being dismissed from a
prominent bank, where he had worked in foreign exchange. As was
reported in the press, the dismissal came in the wake of
the LIBOR benchmark rigging scandal, which cost global
banks more than £10 billion in regulatory fines. The case was
eventually settled – but more than a year later the
whistleblower is yet to find another job in banking.

Faced with this bleak outlook, many people choose to leave their
jobs without blowing the whistle. Yet others feel a moral
imperative to speak up.

That was the case for Pav Gill, the Singapore-based in-house
lawyer who discovered serious financial improprieties at Wirecard.
To remain quiet would have meant compromising his professional
ethics. However his principles cost him dearly. After Wirecard
tried to supress Pav’s attempts to whistleblow and initiate
investigations into the red flags, he was forced out of Wirecard.
Thereafter, he lived in fear for his personal safety, being at the
receiving end of retaliation from the company in the form of
intimidation, threats, and being tailed. “It took tremendous
courage for Pav to do what he did, at the cost of drawing
Wirecard’s wrath” observes Amarjit Kaur, the partner who
advised Pav.

A lack of proper legislation to protect whistleblowers means
that retaliation by employers is common in Singapore, says Amarjit.
Yet employees continue to report wrongdoing, often believing that
their multinational employers will protect them from, for example,
bullying or harassment. “Employees often hope that the bad
behaviour will stop. They may also have some greater ideal of
preventing others from going through the same experience,”
says Amarjit, who is also our global lead partner for diversity
& inclusion.

One senior employee at a large company with US headquarters told
an HR director that she was being sexually harassed by her male
boss. Instead of investigating, her colleague commented that she
was lucky – the man was attractive. The harassment continued,
harming the whistleblower’s wellbeing to the extent that she
was forced to take mental health leave, during which she was
fired.

We were able to negotiate an almost unheard-of settlement with
the company, which needed to protect its reputation after similar
accusations had appeared in the media. The whistleblower was
pleased, but has still been left traumatised by her experience and
with a potentially damaging gap on her CV. “This is an
egregious pattern of behaviour and employers do it with
impunity,” comments Amarjit.

The experience of whistleblowers may be more positive in the
United States, where the Securities Exchange Commission offers
whistleblowers money for reporting information that leads to a
prosecution. More than $700 million has been paid to more than 100
individuals since the programme began in 2012.

Whatever legal protections are available, though, there is
likely to be reputational damage on both sides, as Pav Gill
reflected in an interview with the Financial Times. “I
don’t like the term whistleblower, honestly,” he
said.

Remaining silent, of course, also comes with risks. Several of
Mr Gill’s former Wirecard colleagues are now in custody on
fraud charges. Had he made a less principled decision, he could
have found himself among them.

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