MPs Seek Independent Review of How the FCA Treats Whistleblowers

A cross-party group of MPs has called for an independent examination of how the Financial Conduct Authority treats whistleblowers, following the death of Simon Andriesz BBC.

Mr Andriesz was a former senior employee of BGC Partners, an international firm of financial brokers founded and run by Howard Lutnick before President Donald Trump appointed him as US commerce secretary. He died in Thailand. His family said he took his own life on 23 September. They said there was no suggestion of foul play.

Earlier this year, Mr Andriesz contacted the FCA, the FBI and other watchdogs with material drawn from publicly released Epstein files about business links between Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, and Mr Lutnick. He said the files showed Mr Lutnick offered in 2013 to go into business with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and use his contacts to attract investment in exchange for a £1m loan. BGC told the BBC the proposed 2013 joint venture did not go ahead.

Separately, Mr Andriesz gave evidence to the FCA, the UK regulator for financial firms and markets, alleging cash from a commission pool set aside to pay brokers' bonuses had been taken for improper purposes. The pool works a little like a shared bonus pot for staff. BGC denied the allegation. He also said he had faced retaliation for whistleblowing. The FCA told him there was "insufficient evidence to conclude there had been retaliation against him". BGC told the BBC it had strong policies to protect whistleblowers and said it had not retaliated against him.

Weeks before his death, Mr Andriesz said at a public event that he felt "thoroughly let down" and "put through absolute hell" by the FCA. In July, he said the FCA had been told about other serious allegations he made as long ago as 2018 and said it had failed to act. The FCA told the BBC in July it had acted on his allegations and pointed to a supervision order, a formal instruction to a firm, it issued based on his information.

The parliamentary response is being led by John McDonnell, the Labour backbench MP who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services, an informal group of MPs and peers interested in the issue. The group said the FCA should pay for an independent party to evaluate its handling of whistleblowers.

The funding detail here matters as well as the process. It would place the cost with the regulator while seeking to keep the assessment at arm's length from it.

The FCA is to examine how it treated Mr Andriesz Financial Times.

The broader context here is confidence in whistleblowing itself. The FCA depends on inside information to spot misconduct in wholesale markets, where banks and large firms trade with each other, and the commission pool allegation goes to the basic plumbing of broker pay. For specialists, the test will be documentary. What was reported, when, what supervisory action followed, and how retaliation assessments were reached and recorded. The cross-border element adds complexity, with referrals spanning UK and US authorities and touching a serving US cabinet secretary. None of those questions is settled by an internal review alone, which explains why MPs are pressing for an externally led evaluation.