Whistleblowing is when someone – often an employee – reports suspected wrongdoing in their workplace, in the interest of the public. That suspected wrongdoing could involve something illegal, fraudulent, dangerous, unsafe, discriminatory, unfair or environmentally damaging, to name but a few examples.
The law creates two levels of protection for whistleblowers –
(1) The dismissal of an employee will be automatically unfair if the reason, or principal reason, for their dismissal is that they have made a “protected disclosure”
(2) workers are also protected from being subjected to any detriment on the ground that they have made a protected disclosure (the definition of a “worker” is wider than that under the Employment Rights Act and includes employees and employee shareholders as well as a wide range of other types of individual.
This is a complex area of law. However, if you believe you are a whistle blower and that you have either been dismissed or subjected to a detrminent because of it, get in touch with us as we can help you.
In a recent case we secured compensation of £400,000 for our client.
