A parliamentary bill to protect whistleblowers should include financial rewards for people who uncover serious wrongdoing, wrote McGuireWoods London partner Francesca Titus in an Aug. 20, 2025, opinion column in Business Quarter, a publication for British and European business leaders.
Despite a Parliament-commissioned study showing 78% of whistleblowers reporting their organizations retaliated against them, Titus wrote, “law enforcement continues to rely on whistleblowers to do the right thing and bring serious criminality to light” without any compensation.
“The obvious missing element from the Bill is a financial incentive scheme which evidence from other jurisdictions shows increases the effectiveness of economic crime investigations and is being called for by law enforcement,” added Titus, a partner in the firm’s Government Investigations & White Collar Litigation Practice Group.
Titus concluded that companies of all sizes should update their whistleblowing reporting mechanisms to ensure “staff are trained and managers know how to go about investigating and following up on whistleblower complaints.”