Wirecard Whistleblower Encourages Governments to Create Independent Whistleblowing Bodies

Pav Gill, a former Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance lawyer, is best known for being the whistleblower who exposed Wirecard — one of Europe's greatest financial scandals. He will join other whistleblowers and leaders in the anti-fraud field as a keynote speaker for the virtual 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Asia-Pacific, 22-24 September.

Gill told the ACFE that governments around the world need to do more to support whistleblowers. “If members of the general public are encouraged to report crimes, then why not employees in companies?” he asked. “Governments should consider creating independent whistleblowing bodies which are able to counsel potential whistleblowers without judgement or reprise. These bodies or agencies should provide both a counselling function and channeling function.”

Gill, who is currently the chief legal officer for digital assets and wealth generation platform Zipmex, also called for more oversight in auditing. “There needs to be a much stronger accountability framework for independent auditors,” he said. “A paradigm shift in mindset needs to happen with regard to why exposing criminal activities should be viewed more respectably than keeping silent — for example, employees in critical control functions such as legal and compliance must be held accountable if they knew but did nothing … this could be viewed not only as a failure of professional ethics and responsibility, but also aiding [and] abetting the wrongdoings.”

Other conference speakers include Theranos whistleblower Erika Cheung, WorldCom whistleblower and CEO of Coopergroup Cynthia Cooper, head of investigations of the European Investment Bank Bernard O’Donnell and more. Attendees will hear from anti-fraud experts on topics ranging from anti-corruption controls in the Asia-Pacific region and cybercrime to emerging trends in data science and corporate consciousness.

To learn more about the conference, visit FraudConference.com/AsiaPac.