ABOUT WHISTLEBLOWING
Whistleblowers have a significant impact on the fight against corruption, international crime, and environmental harm on a global scale. International law recognizes the importance of whistleblowers and whistleblower protection as part of the UN Convention Against Corruption enacted in 2003, which was signed by 140 countries and formally authorized by 137 countries. It is often the whistleblower who is punished for reporting crimes, but Whistleblowers are an important resource for identifying criminal activity. Because of this, Whistleblower protections are essential. Whistleblower protection is the top line of defense for defending the public interest as opined in the OCED Report of 2016.
Whistleblowing mechanism is one of the crucial elements of Corporate Governance, with millions of dollars being lost to occupational fraud due to breaches of internal controls. Employees are among the first witnesses to observe any malpractice in the company. Hence, raising an alarm about any infraction is the responsibility of an employee who is committed to their profession, with the obligation vested in the company to formulate a system.
There is no common legal definition of what constitutes whistleblowing. The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines it as “the reporting by employees or former employees of illegal, irregular, dangerous, or unethical practices by employers.” In the case of fraud, corruption, or other wrongdoing, a whistleblower informs the public or higher authorities.
This person could be employed by a company or working for the government. Whistleblowers might be either internal or external. An internal whistleblower is someone who alerts the senior leadership team to misbehavior, fraud, or indiscipline within the organization. It is called external whistleblowing when a whistleblower alerts the authorities, media, or senior government officials to wrongdoing within the organization. The past ten years have seen some international whistleblowers gain notoriety in India, including Frances Haugen, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden. India, too, has its list of whistleblowers who have recently played a significant role in uncovering high-profile national scandals and significant instances of corruption, frequently at the expense of their lives.
INSTANCES OF WHISTLEBLOWING
Chelesa Manning
A US Army intelligence analyst named Chelsea Manning made the most significant release of classified documents in American history in 2010. The pile of documents featured descriptions of prisoner abuse, torture, and incarceration. The revelations spurred an ongoing discussion over the US military’s use of technology, transparency, and ethics. Despite being found guilty of breaking the Espionage Act and receiving a 35-year jail term, Manning unexpectedly received clemency from President Obama in the last weeks of his term.
Edward Snowden
The name itself contains information, and he is one of the most powerful men in US political history. Snowden had worked at the National Security Agency as an employee of several outside companies, including Booz Allen and Dell. He was assigned the task of turning over information from the NSA, one of the most clandestine organizations in the world. The US National Security Agency (NSA) and the U.K.’s intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters, both operated massive intelligence-gathering surveillance operations that were previously secret, according to Snowden, who made his revelations in 2013. As a result, Snowden was accused of spying by the American authorities and booked under the Espionage Act.
Andrew Macquire
British commodities trader and whistleblower Andrew Maguire. In front of American officials, he presented proof supporting his claims of fraud and price manipulation in the global gold and silver markets. Adrian Douglas, a board member of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), had a radio interview with him on March 29, 2010. In April 2010, he made claims that JPMorgan Chase and HSBC had manipulated the gold and silver markets. This led to various types of litigation, including a class action lawsuit. His allegations have not resulted in any regulatory or legal action.
Frances Haugen
“The Facebook Files: A Wall Street Journal Investigation”, a series of news articles based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions, presentations to senior management, was published by The Wall Street Journal starting in September 2021. In 2021, Frances Haugen enabled The Wall Street Journal and the Securities and Exchange Commission access to tens of thousands of Facebook internal papers. The records have led to a flurry of accusations, including that Facebook knew its products were causing harm to minors’ mental health, were inciting racial violence in nations like Ethiopia, and failed to stop misinformation before the 6th January Washington riots.
Lalit Mehta
Lalit Mehta, an engineer by trade, participated extensively in the ‘The Right to Food’ campaign activities in the Palamu area of Jharkhand. Mehta revealed fraud in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee program’s administration. With the aid of economists, he conducted a social audit of the scheme but was assassinated before he could uncover the entire fraud.
Satyendra Dubey
A project director for the National Highway Authority of India, Satyendra Dubey was one of the first whistleblowers in India. He worked with the Indian Engineering Services. He was in charge of overseeing the construction of a portion of the Aurangabad-Barachatti section of the NH 2 (The Grand Trunk Road), a highway that was a part of the “Golden Quadrilateral Project,” a significant infrastructure undertaking by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Koderma district of Jharkhand. Dubey exposed the financial irregularities in the project’s operations and forced the contractor to suspend three engineers. After arriving in Gaya on November 27, 2003, Dubey was fatally shot while traveling back from a wedding in Varanasi.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014, was passed to offer a framework for looking into claims of corruption and power abuse by public officials and to protect those who make such claims. However, 7 years have elapsed since the Act’s adoption, and no changes have been made. As of now, there are no official laws governing whistleblowing. The US has the strongest laws governing whistleblower norms across the world. Different reward systems are awarded to a whistleblower whose complaints are found to be true under various laws in the US. The mechanism behind the same is distinctive since it takes into account the money that the whistleblower was able to help the authority recover or save by filing such a complaint. The largest reward awarded was $104 million to Bradley Birkenfeld, a global banker who exposed the practice of US taxpayers utilizing secret Swiss bank accounts to evade paying taxes to the IRS.
Combatting corruption in both the public and commercial sectors is imperative, so it is crucial to encourage personnel to report misconduct and to protect them when they do. A strong culture of internal reporting and whistleblower protection, even without that legislative requirement, simply makes excellent business sense. First and foremost, employees are reluctant to speak up because they worry about being punished. The answer to such retribution is to ensure whistleblower protection and show that the company acts when reports are received.
Written by – Aathira Pillai
Edited by – Yashvi Vasani
