The Whistleblower

When an employee informed the Directors that the Zurich-based parent company and a Mauritius-based subsidiary were side-tracking client money, their response was not what he had expected. When the Directors subsequently sacked him, his response was not what they expected.

A whistleblower is a person who exposes misconduct, alleged dishonesty or illegal activity occurring in an organisation. Whistleblowing in the UK occurs if an employee makes a Public Interest Disclosure (PID). The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 was intended to protect whistleblowers from detrimental treatment by their employers.

Following a PID submission, the author was made redundant and took his employer, TAM Asset Management Ltd, to an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal on the basis of discrimination due to his whistleblowing. The judge ruled that the one and only issue was whether a causal link between the dismissal and the whistleblowing could be proved — the tribunal was not the place to discuss the merits of the actual whistleblowing.

This book was drafted in anticipation of an unfavourable verdict, to be launched on the day of what the author regards as the egregious decision. You will read about the inadequacy and failing of the FSA to act, and the apparent inaction of its replacement, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). If TAM Asset Management engineered a method to side-track client funds, other asset management companies may be doing the same. In the UK, £700 billion is held under discretionary management — if just half of one per cent is being side-tracked, that amounts to £3.5 billion.