Ashley Alder, chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has been criticised for revealing the identity of an internal whistleblower to other staff members.
The whistleblower sent emails to Alder in December and March to raise concerns over “opaque hiring practices” at the FCA.
The regulator has launched an internal review to investigate the complaints.
However, according to an article in the Financial Times, Alder reportedly forwarded the whistleblower’s correspondence, revealing their identity without their consent.
This goes against the regulator’s policy.
The whistleblower told the FT that they were left “angry, stunned and speechless” when they saw the forwarded emails unredacted.
They called the breach “institutional betrayal” and accused the FCA of “incompetence and incapability”.
They said FCA employees are required to complete annual mandatory whistleblowing training.
Georgina Halford-Hall, chief executive of WhistleblowersUK, said: “This case demonstrates that the FCA hasn’t got its own house in order and therefore it casts serious doubt over whether it’s able to lead and deliver its duties as a regulator to those it regulates.”
Halford-Hall, who is campaigning for an independent whistleblowing watchdog, called on Alder to “fall on his own sword”.
Alder, a trained lawyer, was appointed chair of the FCA Board in February 2023.
He was previously the chief executive of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong.
Neither Alder or the FCA have commented on the alleged whistleblowing breach.
However, the FCA said the whistleblower was dismissed from the regulator in 2021 for alleged misconduct.
They also lost an employment tribunal case against the FCA, a decision they are appealing against.
FCA is corrupt and needs to be shut down.
Alder is a lawyer, for crying out loud ….
This was no accident or over sight
Was he handing out his own justice, to a disgruntled employee to protect the FCA and warn others ?
Sadly this seems the case. Which also proves the previous comment is true
Couldn’t agree more, most know and agree it is rotten to the core and spunks vats of money solely on protecting its own soiled “reputation.” Thing is, it’s tentacles are far reaching and there are too many vested interests for the FCA to be ever held accountable. There are countless, provable instances of the FCA’s myriad failings and incompetences, yet still nothing is done.
No ifs or buts, it’s a resignation matter. Total incompetence.
I earlier posted a comment which seems to have disappeared – no cheering – thank you!
It basically said – No comment from the FCA… errm…except to further denigrate the WB…
An internal investigation – marking own homework more like – + who ACTUALLY IS the FCA’s monitor/backstop/complaint hearer?
Jes Staley (former head of Barclays) got a criminal conviction for hounding and revealing the identity of a WB – he resigned…eventually…will Alder have the same honour, sic?
Still, I guess Alder will be be safe for now at least… A Bailey – late of FCA London Capital scandal…more marking own homework until they pounced upon the auditors recently – looks like he loves his impervious position at BoE – sorry matey, Alder, you are stuck with the public for now!
Why all the surprise? I thought we all knew that
The inhabitants of Endeavour Sq are a bunch of plonkers.
I’m an informant to the FCA who dodged my carefully logged information because the FCA was mutually aligned with the FOS, and shut its eyes.
That’s unsurprising as the FOS chief of staff (Simone Ferreira) was seconded (on loan) from the FCA.
That’s about as independent as the Independent Assessor specially selected by the FOS: For her independence of course…and maybe to keep her mouth shut which, after supreme errors of documented fact, she does: to even muster up an apology would collapse the deck of cards.
To do so would reveal that her ‘independent’ information came from an Ombudsman, no less, who got it from hearsay within the FOS, after colluding, in writing, to a monstrous lie, later visible from a hard-won SAR result, initially rebutted by FOS legals.
An FOS ‘mentor’ of FOS ‘newbies’ also transferred to the FCA, after which she seems to have got herself qualified for her previous mentoring claim.
Some hope for whistleblowers, informants or newbies.
It’s in the DNA: as was, among other facts, blunt refusal, by stonewalling, to look at a forged screenshot in plain view. That’s a forged (faked up)
item within FOS control of evidence tampering.
Urrrgh! (And there’s much more, cleverly hidden from within)
Dear Harry
I’m still in practice ,therefore after 55,75 yrs in the business I do not have your wisdom to comment upon such wise administrators
Bw
Paul
I have known Ashley Alder professionally for more than 30 years. He is a thoroughly decent, honest and intelligent person. This can only have been a terrible mistake. The FCA is lucky to have him.
Really….after 30 years as a lawyer – my inference – he ends up at FCA?…
I wonder if he realized before taking a pay cut – and if he did not then maybe a lawyer of one year x 30 – just how maligned, disliked, mistrusted, and generally regarded as a very low shower FCA has become… and those who are on the ‘Bridge’
I note no comment except to defend FCA, no apology (I have seen/read) for the ‘most terrible mistake’ sob, an internal review to reassure errm.. independent people by definition….
Still, could be worse…perhaps the CII will ptovide a better pension… BTW… what have the CII to say baout this?
Tell him to get his act together then
That’s what happens when a regulator in unaccountable to ANYONE!
The FOS, and TWO banks, are proven complicit in hiding, or wiping, the content, of phone recordings.
A whistleblower, or an informant, has a major problem when those at, or near, the top are corrupt and well covered by teams of their well placed armchair experts with fancy job descriptions.
That seems to be a racket to cover corrupt management.
The ‘Independent Assessor’ is, currently, also a part of the system to believe nobody except the apparently corrupted. She has actually done that, and she knows it, if she has bothered to look at FOS own records.
TWO banks were hiding their own evidence from Mickey Mouse FOS “investigators”,(and a newbie lawyer).
One of the banks went to extreme lengths and made up tiresome excuses with the FOS to hide evidence, finally concluding “You’re out of the time allowed”.
In fact it had already granted an extension of the ‘time allowed’, but hid it from officialdom and added a blunt lie to divert an amateur’investigator’ from the FOS.
In both cases, attention to the calls requested would have turned the FOS ‘investigation’ into a few minutes instead of a year or years.
Abject dishonesty pays well for armchair ‘experts’ collecting obscene salaries.
There are no coincidences. I have all the names verified, so how does the establishment react? Guess!
Good morning, I am the FCA Whistleblower. Here is my quote in full:
“This is a perfect example of not only individual and institutional betrayal, but also of the FCA’s incredible incompetence and incapability. To have the Chairman of a prescribed whistleblowing body expose me has left me extremely angry, stunned and speechless.
I call on Chancellor Reeves to bring this out of control public body to heel immediately, and to anyone thinking of raising Reportable Concerns to the FCA – don’t. Until the Office of The Whistleblower is established, I strongly advise diverting all whistleblowing intelligence to an MP and the media simultaneously.
All FCA employees are required to complete mandatory whistleblowing training on an annual basis – this includes protecting a whistleblower’s identity, which is something so basic and fundamental. Yet, it appears this requirement isn’t applicable to the FCA Chair.”
I’ll log this here as it was in the public domain from 28 August 2024 which I’ll requote below.
“The FOS, and TWO banks, are proven complicit in hiding, or wiping, the content, of phone recordings”.
Isn’t that enough of a potentially scurrilous accusation to arouse response?
None dare: more fraud to cover up? You bet!
And why is India involved in all three? Who’d know?
Their vast access to PR just blames me for their own incredible employee mismanagement: and I’m having none of that.