Whistle-blowing reaches center stage globally, but what about Cyprus?

1. The Latest Developments in the U.S.
The latest progress comes from the U.S. courts system. In the span of a few weeks, a lawsuit filed by a former University of California-Irvine (UCI) professor and anesthesiologist who blew the whistle on illegal practices resulted in an agreement by the California Board of Regents to pay $1.2 mln to the federal government. In Alaska, an employee was granted a settlement of $3.5 mln in a whistleblower retaliation case after suing his former employer for wrongful termination. And in Maine, a security worker was awarded more than $200,000 in damages and attorney fees for wrongful termination in a whistleblowing case.
Government agencies and other groups are also making progress in increasing whistleblowing efforts. The Government Accountability Project, a U.S. whistleblower advocacy organisation, is engaged in its 2012-2013 American Whistleblower Tour, which visits college campuses and other locations to promote its message of “corporate and government accountability by protecting whistleblowers, advancing occupational free speech, and empowering citizen activists.” It uses social media and other means to convey to the public its core message of strengthening whistleblower rights.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released the first full-year report of its Office of the Whistleblower, which was established under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. The Office administers an initiative to promote payment of monetary awards and increased protection to individuals providing significant new information helpful in prosecuting large, successful enforcement actions.

The 2012 annual report on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Programme shows that the agency received and processed 3,001 tips, complaints, and referrals (TCRs) during the 2012 fiscal year. Additionally, in the four months of the year that a telephone hotline was available, the agency received 3,050 calls. The most common subjects of the TCRs were corporate disclosures and financials (18.2%), offering fraud (15.5%), and manipulation (15.2%). An “other” category made up 23.4% of the TCRs.
The SEC’s whistleblower report also indicates that “there were 143 enforcement judgments and orders issued during fiscal year 2012 that potentially qualify as eligible for a whistleblower reward.” Also, “the Office of the Whistleblower provided the public with notice of these actions because they involved sanctions exceeding the statutory threshold of more than $1 mln.”

2. The Latest Developments in the U.K.
In the United Kingdom, a new independent commission was formed to “make it easier” to raise the alarm on misbehaviour in corporations or the government. It’s led by David Ison, the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Michael Woodford, the whistleblowing former CEO of Olympus, the Japanese corporation famous for its cameras and medical equipment. The commission’s objective is to determine how public attitudes, laws and rules about whistleblowing should be changed to encourage speaking up when people see wrongdoing.
At the same time, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), a quasi-governmental agency that was formed as one of the successors of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and serves as a sort of counterpart to the U.S. SEC, is considering the adoption of U.S.-style bounty payments to whistleblowers, considering “the FSA ­receive[d] up to 4,000 whistleblowing reports every year, with 12% pursued as ‘actionable intelligence’.”
Martin Wheatley, chief executive designate of the FCA, told a parliamentary commission that the FCA is looking into providing cash incentives, adding, “we have spoken to the U.S. authorities and are looking very carefully at it, but it is too early to make a judgment yet.” He continued, “the key difference to us is the incentive structure. Under our system it is a moral incentive to do the right thing, whereas the U.S. system operates a financial incentive, and there are some pros and cons to both.”