BBCThe treatment of whistleblowers by the UK’s financial watchdog must be investigated following the death of a British trader who exposed evidence of links between US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and Jeffrey Epstein, MPs have said.
Simon Andriesz, a former senior employee of BGC Partners – the international firm of financial brokers founded and run by Lutnick before his appointment by US President Donald Trump – died last month in Thailand.
Earlier this year, Andriesz raised concerns with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the FBI and other watchdogs about evidence he had uncovered of business links between Epstein and Lutnick. It cast doubt on Lutnick’s public statements about his associations with the late sex offender.
A group of UK MPs have now said his death raises “deeply troubling questions” about the way whistleblowers can be treated when they approach the FCA – the financial regulator – with concerns about wrongdoing and subsequent retaliation.
Andriesz uncovered evidence that Lutnick had sought, in Andriesz’s words, to “buy a prince”, offering to go into business with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in 2013 and utilise the former prince’s contacts to attract investments, in exchange for a loan of £1m. BGC told the BBC the proposed joint venture did not go ahead.
Andriesz also submitted evidence to the FCA to support his allegations of misconduct at Lutnick’s former firm, including an allegation that cash from the pool of commission money set aside to pay brokers’ bonuses was “embezzled” for improper purposes – an allegation the firm has denied.
Weeks before his death, Andriesz told a public event led by MPs, whistleblowers and campaigners calling for fairer regulation that he felt “thoroughly let down” and had been put through “absolute hell” by the FCA, to whom he had sent evidence of what he regarded as whistleblower retaliation by BGC and its lawyers.
The FCA had previously told Andriesz there was “insufficient evidence” to conclude there had been retaliation, a conclusion he believed made it harder to win a claim against BGC at tribunal.
BGC previously told the BBC it had strong policies protecting whistleblowers and denied retaliating against him.
US Department of JusticeJohn McDonnell, the Labour backbench MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services, described Andriesz’s death as a “profound and preventable tragedy”.
He said whistleblowers were “an essential part of the financial regulatory system” and warned there would be consequences for the integrity of the system if people did not believe they would be “treated properly, protected appropriately and listened to seriously”.
The group of MPs called for the FCA to pay for an independent party to evaluate its handling of whistleblowers.
‘Extreme retaliation and devastation’
In July, Andriesz told MPs and campaigners the FCA had been fully informed about other serious allegations he had made as long ago as 2018 and accused it of inaction.
The FCA told the BBC in July it had acted on his allegations and pointed to a supervision order it had issued based on his information.
But in Andriesz’s view that amounted to little more than a regulatory “slap on the wrist” and made it harder to make a claim for whistleblower retaliation against BGC at tribunal.
Later that month, he told a meeting of the campaign group the Transparency Task Force the FCA was not fulfilling its obligations to the public and whistleblowers and merely “pays lip service” to the rules and regulations.
“It protects the institution and then exposes the whistleblower to extreme retaliation and devastation to their lives and families,” he said.
The FCA told the BBC it was appointing a new non-executive director on its board, former Bank of England director Lea Paterson, to conduct a review into Andriesz’s treatment and the FCA’s handling of his whistleblower allegations.
An FCA spokesperson said: “We are very sorry to hear of Mr Andriesz’s death. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
“Since expressing our condolences, we’d asked Lea Paterson, who has just joined our board as a non-executive director, to review how we interacted with Mr Andriesz to learn any lessons for the future.”
