Committing To Effective Whistleblower Protection

Whistleblower protection is vital for: safeguarding public interest; promoting accountability and integrity in public and private institutions; and encouraging reporting of misconduct, fraud and corruption. This report analyses whistleblower protection standards in the public and private sectors.

An updated edition of the first-ever consumer guide to whistleblowing by the nation’s leading whistleblower attorney The newest edition of The Whistleblower’s Handbook brings the most comprehensive and authoritative guide to exposing workplace wrongdoing up-to-date with new information on wildlife whistleblowing, auto safety whistleblowing, national security whistleblowing, and ocean pollution whistleblowing. It also includes a new “Toolkit” for international whistleblowers. This essential guide explains nearly all federal and state laws regarding whistleblowing, and in the step-by-step bulk of the book, presents more than twenty must-follow rules for whistleblowers—from finding the best federal and state laws to the dangers of blindly trusting internal corporate “hotlines” to obtaining the proof you need to win the case.

From Erin Brockovich to Enron, whistleblowers who “challenge abuses of power that betray the public trust” have proven to be an unfortunate necessity in modern business culture. Their efforts to report crimes, fraud, and dangers to public health and safety have saved millions of lives and billions of dollars of shareholder value – and had we heeded the warnings of whistleblowers, perhaps disasters such as the Bernie Madoff scandal and the Lehman Brothers meltdown could have been averted. Recent federal legislation in finance and health reform have cemented legal protections and mechanisms for whistleblowing. This book provides a thorough guide and history to the whistleblower's legal rights. The ultimate survival guide, it provides advice on getting help and finding allies, warns that retaliation is often the reward for "committing the truth" and shows how to weather the storm. With extensive legal texts, sample letters, resources, and information on upcoming whistleblower reforms, this is the ultimate source on the subject.

Society needs whistleblowers, yet to speak up and expose wrongdoing often results in professional and personal ruin. Drawing on the stories of men and women who reported unethical and illegal conduct in corporations, Kate Kenny explains why this is so, and what must be done to protect those who have the courage to expose the truth.

"A new roadmap for understanding the diverse perspectives and disparate bodies of law involved in any legal regime aimed at encouraging people in organisations to speak up about wrongdoing, making it possible for them to do so, and supporting and protecting them when they do. More than just a rich and readable history of whistleblowing laws, in the USA and around the world. Steeped in Robert Vaughn's personal experience as a lawyer and researcher over a 40 year period, this book stands to help solve some of the greatest conundrums in this vital area of legal regulation - one of the most complex in modern society, but one of the most crucial to integrity, accountability and organisational justice in all institutions. Compulsory reading for all policymakers, regulators, corporate leaders, researchers and activists engaged in improvement and implementation of public interest whistleblowing laws." - A.J. Brown, Griffith University and Transparency International Australia "Unlike other books on whistleblowing that simply describe and analyze whistleblowing laws, Robert Vaughn's new book provides an in-depth and unique historical account of the roots of the whistleblowing movement in such disparate events as the Mai Lai massacre, the civil rights movement, and the experiments of Stanley Milgrim. As important, he then uses that history to illuminate the competing perspectives and pressures that influenced the passage and interpretation of modern whistleblower laws. Vaughn provides a first-rate account of the varied and complex reasons for the successes and failures of these laws during the last forty years." - Richard Moberly, University of Nebraska College of Law, US Drawing on literature from several disciplines, this enlightening book examines the history of whistleblower laws throughout the world and provides an analytical structure for the most common debates about the nature of such laws and their potential successes and failures. The author explores the relationship between the actions of whistleblowers and the character of laws protecting them, as well as their administration and enforcement. The book considers the role of civil society groups in the successes of whistleblower laws and how current controversies reflect issues attached to these laws over half a century. This study contains perspectives from which successes and failures can be evaluated and will appeal to policy makers, scholars, whistleblower advocacy and other civil society groups, as well as anyone with a general interest in the subject.

This guide sets out results from four years of research into how public sector organisations can better fulfil their missions, maintain their integrity and value their employees by adopting a current best-practice approach to the management of whistleblowing. This guide focuses on: the processes needed for public employees and employees of public contractors to be able to report concerns about wrongdoing in public agencies and programs; and managerial responsibilities for the support, protection and management of those who make disclosures about wrongdoing, as part of an integrated management approach. The guide is designed to assist with the special systems needed for managing 'public interest' whistleblowing-where the suspected or alleged wrongdoing affects more than the personal or private interests of the person making the disclosure. As the guide explains, however, an integrated approach requires having good systems for managing all types of reported wrongdoing-including personal, employment and workplace grievances-not least because these might often be interrelated with 'public interest' matters.

The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention focuses on enforcement through the criminalisation of foreign bribery but it is multidisciplinary and includes key requirements to combat money laundering, accounting fraud, and tax evasion connected to foreign bribery. The first step, however, in enforcing foreign bribery and related offences is effective detection. This study looks at the primary sources of detection for the foreign bribery offence and the role that certain public agencies and private sector actors can play in uncovering this crime. It examines the practices developed in different sectors and countries which have led to the successful detection of foreign bribery with a view to sharing good practices and improving countries’ capacity to detect and ultimately step-up efforts against transnational bribery. The study covers a wide range of potential sources for detecting foreign bribery: self-reporting; whistleblowers and whistleblower protection; confidential informants and cooperating witnesses; media and investigative journalism; tax authorities; financial intelligence units; other government agencies; criminal and other legal proceedings; international co-operation and professional advisers.

øFeaturing contributions from scholars and policy practitioners in a number of diverse fields _ including sociology, political science, psychology, information systems, media studies, business, management, criminology, public policy and several branche