Whistleblowing in the UK, Ep. 2: Is it ‘British’ to pay whistleblowers?
Behind the Money
Topher Forhecz
4.4 • 350 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the UK, whistleblowers are encouraged to report wrongdoing, but often at cost to their livelihoods and careers. One solution would be to pay corporate whistleblowers for coming forward. However, many in government have held the idea for years that doing so is not very “British.” But now, longtime opposition to the idea seems to be shifting. Suzi Ring, the FT’s legal correspondent in London, explains how and why. Plus, we speak with Nick Ephgrave, the director of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, who is taking inspiration from his decades spent with London’s Metropolitan Police Service to try to change the system.
Clips from ITV
If you missed part one of this series, listen to it here.
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For further reading:
Should corporate whistleblowers get paid?
Whistleblowers could earn millions as HMRC targets tax fraud
UK SFO director pushes to pay whistleblowers and use covert tactics
Corporate whistleblowing in the UK needs a shake-up
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | My colleague, Martin Arnold, who's the F.T.'s Financial Regulation Editor, has been reporting |
| 0:05.9 | on the world of UK finance for many years. And over time, he's seen an ongoing hesitation |
| 0:12.6 | on the part of regulators to pay corporate whistleblowers. |
| 0:16.5 | It's just not cricket, I think, is what I would say. In the UK... I am unfamiliar with that phrase. It's just not cricket, I think, is what I would say. In the UK... |
| 0:21.6 | I am unfamiliar with that phrase. |
| 0:23.7 | It's just not cricket. |
| 0:24.7 | What's that mean? |
| 0:25.7 | It's just not very gentlemanly to be doing it for money. |
| 0:28.8 | You should be doing it because it's the right thing to do anyway. |
| 0:32.7 | There's something slightly tainted, slightly commercial about it. |
| 0:38.3 | As recently as 2018, the head of the UK's serious fraud office, which prosecutes financial crimes, |
| 0:45.3 | said that paying whistleblowers just isn't British. |
| 0:49.3 | But the tide might be turning. |
| 0:51.3 | The SFO now has a new director, and he's become a major advocate for |
| 0:56.9 | whistleblower rewards. In the US, you're not embarrassed or ashamed, and nor should you be, |
| 1:03.3 | of saying, if you give us information that helps us convict a criminal, we're going to pay you for that. |
| 1:07.5 | That's Nick Fgrave, the new head of the SFO. I think that's an entirely good thing to do. |
| 1:13.5 | We do it in the UK with criminal informers. Why are we so reticent to do the same thing for |
| 1:18.2 | whistleblowers? I just cannot understand it. This is behind the money from the Financial Times. |
| 1:25.6 | I'm Mikala Tendera, and this is part two of our series on corporate |
| 1:29.8 | whistleblowing in the UK. In our first episode, we spoke with people who came forward to expose |
| 1:36.4 | wrongdoing at the companies they worked at and then paid a high price for it. On today's episode, |
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