Ungagging the Whistleblower in Foreign Corruption Investigations: Turning International best Practices into Reality

UNGAGGING THE WHISTLEBLOWER IN FOREIGN

CORRUPTION INVESTIGATIONS: TURNING

INTERNATIONAL “BEST PRACTICES”

INTO REALITY

JESSE VAN GENUGTEN*

ABSTRACT

Access to information drives successful enforcement of foreign anti-bribery

laws. Whistleblowers, by providing intimate knowledge of the inner workings of

a corporate entity, one suspected of wrongdoing, can serve to expose serious alle-

gations of foreign bribery. This role is well-documented and championed by

international best practices aimed at protecting vulnerable whistleblowers and

encouraging substantive disclosures of illegal conduct. Nevertheless, potential

informants can be silenced with the inclusion of gag clauses in employee con-

tracts or the threat of f‌inancially ruinous litigation, nefarious corporate prac-

tices that must be condemned.

Complicating matters, however, is the following wrinkle: threatened whistle-

blowers can generally obtain legal recourse only in their country of residence,

which often affords vastly different legal protections than the country investigat-

ing and prosecuting their employer’s misconduct. Unfortunately, the interna-

tional best practices, in relying almost exclusively on voluntary legislative

action, provide no concrete approach to reducing the f‌inancial and reputa-

tional harm faced by prospective whistleblowers.

Thus, it is necessary to reinforce international whistleblower best practices

with measures aimed at limiting the force of employer threats. This paper argues

that, in addition to the enactment and active enforcement of anti-retaliation

provisions, authorities with considerable inf‌luence in this legal domain,

including the United States, should penalize the use of gag clauses in employee

contracts extraterritorially. Further, countries should provide mechanisms for

conf‌idential whistleblowing, set up public funding or legal aid for whistle-

blowers, consider a mechanism for attorney fee shifting to cover deterrent legal

fees, and incorporate whistleblower rewards in any substantive enforcement

action. Ultimately, these incremental changes will remove unnecessary obstacles

* Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. 2019; Cornell University, B.A. 2016. I want to thank

the Georgetown Journal of International Law staff for their valuable comments and their tireless work.

Additionally, I want to give my sincerest thanks to Professors Julie O’Sullivan and Nathaniel

Edmonds for their guidance and valuable insight. The opinions expressed in this Note are those

of the author alone and do not necessarily ref‌lect the views of his employer or clients. V

C 2020,

Jesse Van Genugten.

489

to whistleblower disclosures and empower authorities tasked with eradicating

foreign bribery.

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

A. The Dilemma of a Foreign Bribery Whistleblower . . . . . . . . . 490

B. AB InBev: Efforts to Muzzle a Potential Whistleblower . . . . . 492

C. Proposals for Moving Forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

II. THE IMPORTANCE OF WHISTLEBLOWERS IN THE ANTI-BRIBERY

CONTEXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

A. Information Gathering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

B. Focusing Prosecutor and Investigator Resources. . . . . . . . . . 496

C. Encouraging Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498

III. STRATEGIES EMPLOYED TO SILENCE WHISTLEBLOWERS. . . . . . . . . . 498

IV. WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTIONS: BEST PRACTICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

A. OECD and UNCAC Obligations to Protect Whistleblowers. . . 500

B. Other Sources of Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

V. IMPLEMENTING EFFECTIVE WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTIONS . . . . . . . 502

A. Enacting and Actively Enforcing Extraterritorial

Whistleblowers Protections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

1. Anti-Retaliation Provisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

2. Extraterritorial Gag Clause Prohibitions . . . . . . . . 503

B. Reducing the Financial Burden on Whistleblowers. . . . . . . . 505

1. Public Funding & Legal Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

2. Attorney Fee Shifting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

3. Whistleblower Rewards & Qui Tam Provisions . . . 507

C. Creating Mechanisms for Conf‌idential Whistleblowing. . . . . 510

VI. CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

I. INTRODUCTION

A. The Dilemma of a Foreign Bribery Whistleblower

Information from corporate whistleblowers,

1

insiders with intimate

knowledge of corporate wrongdoing, bolster the prosecutorial capabil-

ities of government authorities tasked with investigating foreign bribery

1. The International Bar Association provides the following succinct def‌inition of

whistleblowing: “the making of certain disclosures — internally via a dedicated and clearly

communicated reporting mechanism or externally to appropriate authorities — of actual or

potential (or ‘reasonably anticipated’) conduct that an individual reasonably believes to be

unlawful.” See INT’L BAR ASS’N, WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTIONS: A GUIDE 12 (2018), https://www.

ibanet.org/Document/Default.aspx?DocumentUid=a8bac0a9-ea7e-472d-a48e-ee76cb3cdef8

[hereinafter IBA WHISTLEBLOWER GUIDE].

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