For many years up to 2016, Mr John Banerjee, the former head of emerging markets currency trading at the Royal Bank of Canada had been complaining about the Bank’s Guidelines for traders. He informed senior managers that traders were completing forms that stated that they were up to date with rules excessively fast. Mr Banerjee thought that most traders were moving immediately to the “agree” key without reading the detail of the statements that they were agreeing to. In 2016 Mr Banerjee was fired for long running time keeping.
On Thursday 19 July 2018 a UK court ruled that a whistle-blower had been dismissed unfairly. The Tribunal Judge stated that Mr Banerjee’s late arrival at work was used as a pretext for his dismissal. The judge stated that “The main reason for his dismissal was his public interest disclosure.” Employment lawyers have suggested that only about 4% of whistle-blowers win employment cases and the Financial Times has therefore called it “a rare victory for a whistle-blower”.