INSIGHT: How a Global Company Embraces Internal Whistleblowers

Whistleblowers come in all forms and from all industries and often are an insider, usually an employee. Whistleblowers can pose a threat to an organization as complaints can be costly, but I believe that despite being a threat, corporations should embrace whistleblowers, and especially global companies.

It is good governance to have a confidential and anonymous whistleblower platform in place. How much better would it be that a company finds out about some internal irregularity from an employee, rather than a public and expensive process such as a regulatory investigation or through a court case?

A review of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice illustrates this point. If a company finds the corruption and appropriately deals with it, the SEC fine is usually small compared with fines imposed after a lengthy SEC and DOJ review.

For those employees thinking about blowing the whistle, having a means of making a complaint without a threat of retaliation is paramount.

The DOJ guidelines for the Evaluation of Corporation Compliance Programs, updated in April, highlights for corporations the need for a confidential reporting structure. Having a program under which an employee can make an anonymous complaint which is then dutifully investigated and followed up on is part of a “well-designed compliance program” per the guidelines.

Global Company’s Whistleblower Reporting Upgrade

For my company, a useful whistleblower system needed to be easily accessible to our employees in the many countries that we have our business.

We had a whistleblower platform in place that we adopted when we first went public. However, over the years we have grown into a very large global organization and we needed to upgrade.

We looked at both online tools and actual voice hotlines backed by a case management system. In searching for the right vendor to help us out, we went through a process of looking at our current system and built a requirements spreadsheet setting out exactly what we wanted. We shopped this around to a number of vendors.

As many organizations can appreciate, we wanted everything we needed for the minimal annual price. For our voice component, we also made the unusual request to not have call center operators handling the calls. Instead we would receive a voice recording that our team would then input into the case management system.

After choosing the right vendor and implementing the system, our new platform is now up and running. At no point do we punish the whistleblower for reporting a matter. On the contrary, we are grateful that people do bring issues to our attention.

Non-retaliation is a cornerstone of our code of conduct. We have a good team behind the platform who can review the incidents reported in a timely manner. First reviewers across the globe review a case in the local language who investigate by including the appropriate department. Then second, reviewers close the complaint after the investigation is concluded and recommendations implemented.

A whistleblower can indicate whether a reviewer is implicated in the complaint, then that reviewer is replaced by someone else to keep the system fair. The system allows for reporting back to the whistleblower even if the complaint was made anonymously by providing a unique code that can be used to log into the system to receive updates.

We can implement changes which help to instill a culture of prevention and if something is reported, it gets addressed. This is a way for individuals in another country, half a world away, to get important information to headquarters.

The downside of not having a platform in place is that your company is left open to complaints that could cost a lot of money and be a public embarrassment. When I talked about our journey with our whistleblower platform at the Bloomberg Law In-House Forum West in June 2019, many attendees I spoke with had not even thought about having a confidential and anonymous complaints line.

I am hoping that despite what you hear in the press, having such a method for whistleblowers to come forward is truly beneficial for your organization.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

Author Information

Jane Fogarty is an experienced in-house attorney with proven leadership skills at top global technology companies in the U.S and Asia Pacific region. She is currently vice president, senior counsel at SYNNEX Corporation where she heads up compliance globally, leads an international team of lawyers, and manages litigation, M&A, corporate governance and other legal support for a large public Fortune 200 company.