How come there aren't more whistleblowers? It's a vexing question for anyone who'd like to see corporate crime reduced. Just this week, CNN noted that half of all misconduct at financial companies never gets reported, according to a study conducted by the Corporate Executive Board, a Virginia consulting firm.
But another recent story, this one in The New York Times, provides a painful illustration of why potential whistleblowers may not be that interested in speaking up. Not every whistleblower has an experience like Lynn Szymoniak, the mortgage-fraud tipster who got an $18 million settlement for her troubles. Often things can go a lot worse -- like they have for Jack Palmer.
Palmer, an employee at the outsourcing company Infosys, alerted authorities a couple of years ago to what seemed to be shady business practices at his firm, according to the NYT. Since then, he says, Infosys has all but frozen him out, giving him no work and little communication. Palmer says he has gone on medication for anger and depression, and once found a death-threat note on his office chair.
It sounds like the same kind of blowback that many financial workers say they fear, and that keeps them from speaking up when they witness wrongdoing. That's one of the main reasons more whistleblowers don't come forward, Thomas Monahan, the chairman and CEO of the Corporate Executive Board, told CNN. Even Szymoniak says her bank has been harassing her since her case received national attention.
Many would-be whistleblowers also keep quiet because they think their warnings will have no effect, says Monahan -- a concern that's hardly unjustified, given the federal government's track record on ignoring whistleblowers and dismissing their complaints.
The fact that half of all misconduct goes unreported may seem especially troubling at a time when the country is still trying to shake off the effects of a recession hastened by the deregulation of many banking practices.
A few regulators have tried to offer greater incentives to whistleblowers in the wake of the financial crisis, with the Securities and Exchange Commission sometimes paying out between 10 and 30 percent of recovered money to the tipster who makes it happen.
But many Americans aren't even aware that these reward programs exist, and in any case the rules vary widely from agency to agency. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example, has a reputation for sending whistleblowers on their way with nothing but a word of thanks.
Comments
Saab4ever replied on Permalink
Whistleblowers not liked
Even in the USA where they have effective laws to fight misconduct by all who hurt the government including the private sector (the False Claim Act being the best) whistleblowers have a lot to be worried about. It all stems from the fact that no one likes them.
Imagine you have the evidence and first-hand knowledge of misconduct that hurts us all and costs us sometimes billions in stolen money and other damages, you come forward to expose the crooks, they are prosecuted, punished usually financially (jail time rare even in USA) and you feel and know you did the right thing. But no one likes you. Not those who say they are honest and law abiding citizens, not those who are as crooked as the guilty party, not the government, not employers and their employees where you may want to work, not anyone who gets to know you blew the whistle.
Why is this? Are all those who don't like you thus disagreeing with your doing the right thing, on the side of the crooks? Do they agree with those who defraud, steal, lie, cheat etc. etc. even when they themselves would not do such things? Are we pre-wired for dishonesty in a way that either we do the dishonest things or we agree with it and turn the other way but blame those who are not like us and expose the dishonesty via whistleblowing?
So what is the poor, honest and brave whistleblower to do? In my opinion if you are one, go for it if the case is so big that you would come out with a huge reward from the USA government once the crooks are punished. Otherwise you may become a victim without any means of survival. Once you are successful, take the reward and walk away from those who "don't like you" and find a new life somewhere else. It always blows over in the end, and with your reward you will be free.
Unfortunately this is not the case in Canada, thus we practically have no whistleblowers in the private sector and only a few in the public sector. One can imagine the misconduct going on in this country when there is no interest on the part of government or law enforcement to proactively go after the crooks. Wrongdoers carry out their "business" with impunity and only rarely do we have some punished (usually symbolically) who become so careless that even our authorities -- as gutless and toothless they are -- must act..
How fortunate for the crooks and how sad for the rest of us. So next time you "don't like" the whistleblower, think of yourself as part of the problem and partner in crime that you yourself are not willing to do or have no guts to do but wish you had.