MANAGEMENT


many cases, some signifi cant carrots for the whistleblowers.


“People are more likely to blow the whistle when they can see how the organization or an external actor might do something about it.” –Julian Jonker


The whistleblower program run


by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, last year paid out bounties of more than $168 million to 13 individuals whose information and cooperation brought enforcement actions, the SEC reported in its 2018 accounting to Congress. “In fact, the commission awarded more dollars in FY 2018 to meritorious whistleblowers who provided new and critical information than in all prior years combined. The commission also received more whistleblower tips in FY 2018 than in any other previous year,” the report states. More good news: various other whistleblower programs provide protections and rewards in other sectors. The False Claims Act protects and rewards whistleblowers with claims of contractors defrauding the government. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Whistleblower Program covers crimes like securities fraud and currency rate manipulation. The IRS’s Whistleblower Informant Award aims to uncover tax fraud. The U.S. Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 guards government employees from retaliation when reporting a wide variety of abuses, violations of law, waste and actions posing a threat to health or safety. But there are signifi cant gaps in


programs that reward whistleblowers, and they tend to be around certain environmental and consumer


40 DOMmagazine.com | dec 2019 jan 2020


protection laws — “parts of the economy for which non-fi nancial violations are occurring, but have equal impact on public interest,” says Kohn. Given the maze of laws, how can


the average employee know what to do?


“You must contact a


knowledgeable whistleblower lawyer, period, before you to go internally, before you go to the SEC — before you tell your wife,” says Kohn. “These laws work. And they don’t have the publicity of others. They run counter to many stereotypes, that whistleblowers are being retaliated against and losing their careers. But under these laws the government has done a fantastic job at protecting identifi cation.”


But contacting a lawyer, if the company fi nds out about it, is likely to be interpreted as an escalation of confrontation. In some sectors, confrontation is inevitable, since whistleblowing is mandatory — when a teacher learns of sexual misconduct in a school, for instance. Since 1978, New York City has required city workers to report instances of waste, fraud, abuse or corruption, lest they


face disciplinary action. Would extending mandatory


reporting to more sectors ease some of the confusion facing many workers? “It probably would make it more


likely that you would report,” says Skeel, “but it also makes the situation more fraught if you are afraid of the negative consequences and are told you are breaking a rule if you don’t speak up.” Will the current Trump- whistleblower episode change the course of future whistleblowing? Any greater meaning hinges in part on how it ends, and the story is far from over. “On the one hand, this is an example of someone who did their


duty and fi led a whistleblower report with very good information, and that is the good point,” says Bellace. “On the other hand, in this case, you have the president calling this person a spy, and you’re saying to yourself, ‘I think I am doing the right thing, and I am going to be attacked for it.’ I think the current whistleblower incident could cut both ways.” Trump’s characterization of, and attacks on, the current whistleblower threaten to have a chilling eff ect, says Schweitzer.


“As a nation, we have worked


hard to implement whistleblower protections laws, and Trump’s actions represent a serious setback to what we have accomplished,” he says. “Whistleblowers are the people on the frontlines who can protect us against fraud and corruption. The threats and attacks on the whistleblower set a dangerous precedent. Rather than protecting and admiring them, Trump has sent a warning shot to anyone thinking about reporting misdeeds.” But there’s at least one other


way of looking at it. Because of the prominence of this case, it could serve to “advertise” the value of whistleblowing like nothing else before it. “I don’t know that it will necessarily lead to a lot of soul- searching in large institutions,” says Skeel. “But where there is a massive issue, it might make more people on the margins willing to come forward.”


Republished with permission from Knowledge@Wharton (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu), the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.


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