UK whistleblowers top US league

More than one in 10 tip-offs about corporate wrongdoing received by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) came from overseas, with British whistleblowers topping the list, a global investigations firm said yesterday.

Nearly one in four of the 324 overseas tip-offs came from Britain, according to Kroll's analysis of the US securities market regulator's annual report.

Since 2010, the SEC pays for any information that ends in prosecution. "The bounties are likely to have huge repercussions for companies, as whistleblowers are more likely to go to the regulator than them," said Kroll's managing director, Benedict Hamilton.