Dubai: The Pearl Initiative, a business-led non-profit organisation promoting a corporate culture of accountability and transparency, held a roundtable event titled Whistleblowing: A Pillar of Sound Corporate Governance. The event, held in Dubai featured experts from Pinsent Masons and Kroll.
Over 40 participants, including senior professionals and industry leaders from a number of public and private companies in the UAE and the region, took the opportunity to reflect on current processes within their organisations and learn new ways in which to build upon existing practices. A leading objective of the morning was to help participants understand whistleblowing and its value to the private sector in preventing waste, corruption, fraud, and abuse.
Amine Antari, Managing Director, Kroll started off the conversation by providing the attendees with a brief background of his experience with whistleblowing programmes and highlighted real-life case studies of operational whistleblowing programmes.
Mahmoud Selim, Legal Director, Pinsent Masons then gave a brief introduction into the importance of whistleblowing and why educating people about whistleblowing programmes and their whistleblower rights is essential. “The biggest issue with whistleblowing is it is not widely understood. Most hear about it in newspapers or on the internet but don’t understand how vital the role of a whistleblower is,” Selim said Antari added to Selim’s point about the lack of public knowledge about whistleblowing and mentioned a need for a “change in the culture” surrounding whistleblowing.
Selim and Antari spoke about best practices and policies they have seen in practice that support the prevention of corruption while encouraging an open and honest business environment.
Selim talked about whistleblowers as an “invaluable source” of information for combatting fraud and corruption with Antari referencing a 2017 report by Kroll that identified key challenges and opportunities when it comes to implementing whistleblowing programmes. The panellists shed light on how these can be addressed by offering key guidelines to navigate around potential pitfalls.
Selim reinforced: “We continue to witness drastic reinforcements of new laws and legislations in the UAE and across the region, especially in the financial sector. These new provisions are not only modernising the way transparency is being practiced across private institutions, but also protecting the liabilities and reputational risks of millions of staff members.
0 comments