WHISTLEBLOWING AND REPUTATIONAL DAMAGE

At our recent Women in Compliance breakfast seminar, we heard the views of Cathy James, chief executive of whistleblowing charity Public Concern at Work, and Geraldine Proudler, head of the reputation management group at law firm, Olswang LLP. Cathy and Geraldine see issues surrounding whistleblowing and reputational damage from two different perspectives and as a result their insights sparked an interesting debate.

Public Concern at Work gives advice to individuals who are unsure whether or how to raise a concern about wrongdoing at work. The charity ensures that individuals understand what constitutes a public interest matter and provides advice on how to raise their concern. Cathy was careful to highlight the difference between an issue being in the public interest and of interest to the public. The recent outbreak of scandals such as the News of the World hacking allegations and Wikileaks has brought this distinction further to light. Cathy outlined the legal framework of the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) which protects honest workers who witness wrongdoing. This protection extends from when an individual raises an issue directly with their employer or a regulator to when an individual chooses to make a wider disclosure, for example via the media. In all cases the claim must be reasonable and valid for the individual to be protected under PIDA, but for a wider disclosure this is of extra importance as it is harder to protect the individual.

Geraldine advises corporate bodies on issues that might affect their reputation. This is not usually on issues linked to matters of public interest, because where this is the concern a company would principally require the assistance of a PR firm rather than a lawyer. Geraldine gave examples to illustrate her work. In one case, a client was involved in a large deal and a former employee who had joined a competitor had been sending anonymous emails to their former company’s top clients, alerting them to this deal. The employee was falsely alleging that the deal was faltering and the company was in trouble. A court order was obtained ex parte (without the knowledge of the offending individual) to trace the route of the emails and identify the anonymous person responsible and the employee was subsequently forced to apologise for their actions.

In another example, an anonymous website was publishing defamatory comments about a client of Geraldine’s. In this instance an injunction was taken out against unnamed individuals and a disclosure order was issued to the internet service provider for names and addresses, credit card details, IP addresses, etc. so that the individuals responsible could be traced and the website shut down.

Both Cathy and Geraldine stressed that the internet has vastly altered the balance as information is now so quickly and readily available. Conversely, the risk appetite of journalists has dropped – are they willing to risk libel to publish a story? The current News of the World investigation is a very public example of how much scrutiny the press is under. Perhaps this will result in an increase in anonymous postings, similar to the case that Geraldine highlighted.

Many thanks to both our speakers for an interesting and topical discussion.