Transparency Task Force

Ex-FCA supervisor Jasthi Alom: an FCA non-executive leading the Andriesz review repeats what MPs on the Treasury Committee condemned in 2014. A board-led inquiry lacked credibility then. Why would it have it now? @TheFCA

BACK FROM PARLIAMENT I have just come back from Parliament, from the APPG summit @appgonifandffs, and it was a great experience. The summit was held in the memory of Simon Andriesz @SAndriesz. Here is a short clip of Simon speaking about his case at a @TransparencyTF Zoom meeting, before he took his own life. I want you to hear him in his own words. It was a great experience to meet in person so many people I only knew by their nicknames. Now I know them by their real expressions. I felt so much humanity and so much willingness to stand up for what is right. I heard many personal stories, especially from people who had only 60 seconds to present their case. There were plenty of emotions. To everyone who had a 60 second speech, I personally invite you to send me your story. I will try to amplify it on X and on LinkedIn. Write to me here or there, and I will try to put your story in front of my network. I have said many times that my account is your account. That is the real reason I am active on X and LinkedIn. I want people to be heard. The bigger my account becomes, the more people will hear our stories. In my opinion, this is the only way to shake people in power. Public exposure is their only weakness. It is the one thing they cannot fabricate, and it is in our control. For years, bad actors have managed the courts, judges, politicians, the press and the regulators. They do not worry about any of them. What they worry about is an independent account big enough that it cannot be buried. That is exactly how it worked, and how it will keep working, in the Simon Andriesz case. Send me your case with a summary of 1 A4 page maximum and the core files, and I will amplify it as best I can. Just give me some time. As of now, I have around 25 cases waiting in my inbox. Many things happened at the summit, and a few stayed with me and with my philosophy. First, Lorraine Morris @MLorrM said we have to stick together and support each other. It sounds simple, yet very few whistleblowers and victims remember it. People keep talking about their own cases and forget to support others at the same time. This is what I learned along the way. If you want to be helped, take time to help others in any way you can. It comes back to you, and people will support you. It is as simple as that. Thank you, Lorraine Morris, for saying it. Second, Hester Bais @Wftproof said that in her work she spends more time supporting people on a human level than on a legal level. In my opinion, this connects to isolation, the biggest danger for whistleblowers and victims. Many are kept in isolation for years, and too often it ends with them taking their own lives. Thank you, Hester Bais. Two more speeches stood out for me, from @Ron Warmington @WarmingtonRjw and John Robertson @J_Robertson_UK. I will write about them on another occasion. To everyone who was there yesterday, a big thank you for standing up, not standing by. Remember his name, Simon Andriesz. @JohnCleese @stevemiddi1 @TransparencyTF @MeridianLegals @Victoria_Rixon @CompassnInCare @nw_nicholas @CastletonLee

TOMORROW I GO TO UK PARLIAMENT Tomorrow, 2 November, I will walk into the whistleblower summit of the @appgonifandffs on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services. I have 60 seconds to speak. The event asks why we must protect the wellbeing of whistleblowers. It is dedicated to the memory of Simon Andriesz @SAndriesz. I wrote an eight-minute speech and practised it. Then came the message. So many people wanted to speak that we needed to share the time. My slot is now one minute. Cutting eight minutes to 60 seconds was hard. But I understand. Every person in that room has a story that deserves to be heard. For my minute, I chose Simon, who spent 35 years working in financial markets. My own fight with @rsagroup Insurance, @IntactInsurance UK and the Financial Ombudsman Service @financialombuds gets its turn next time. On 2 November, it is about Simon and the disgraceful way @theFCA treated him. In August, his friend John Robertson @J_Robertson_UK put us in touch. Simon contacted me and we spoke. I wrote about his case and published it on 12 August. It got some attention. On 23 September, Simon took his own life. Two days later, I posted about his death on X. That post received more than 700k views. On 4 October, Congressman @RepThomasMassie quoted it, bringing another 800k views. Newspapers picked up the story. It reached people around the world. Then came the Financial Conduct Authority’s promise of a review. MPs called for an independent investigation. The first question at the FCA Annual Public Meeting was about Simon. Simon had spent years trying to get the regulator, the courts and the press to listen. After his death, his story reached a worldwide audience. Then came the responses he had needed while he was alive. That is a disgrace. Tomorrow, we will talk about protecting whistleblowers’ wellbeing. That starts with how we respond when someone asks us to listen. My inbox is full of messages from whistleblowers and people who have suffered wrongdoing. Behind each message is a person waiting for someone to take them seriously. A reply takes 2 minutes. For someone who has spent years being ignored, it can mean a lot. If a whistleblower writes to you, answer them. Make time for the conversation while they are here to have it. Tomorrow, I have 60 seconds. I will use them to ask people to remember Simon Andriesz, and to listen to those still asking for help. If this moves you, share his name. @stevemiddi1 @appgonifandffs @andyverity @jameshurley @MLorrM @Wftproof @JohnCleese @J_Robertson_UK @nw_nicholas @sharmilaxx @johncock_wayne @TransparencyTF

BIG 4 WHISTLEBLOWER AND THE 10 BILLION HOLE Brendan Lyon @lyon_brendan hit send: I am sick of being bullied. KPMG Australia answered the way every caring employer does, with a conduct investigation into the man who wrote it. On 22 October I joined the @TransparencyTF Zoom meeting and heard the story of Brendan Lyon, a whistleblower. I attached his slides for anybody interested in this fascinating story. That email went to Michael Pratt, head of NSW Treasury, on 19 November 2020, with a suggestion to grow up or tell the truth. Brendan Lyon was a KPMG partner checking a new state rail company called TAHE, and he says Treasury's numbers were essentially made up and the real budget hole was around $10 billion. A rounding error, the kind anyone makes with a calculator and a deadline. Brendan Lyon says Michael Pratt told him to correct the errors or delete every mention of Treasury modelling, which was none of his business. Emails Brendan Lyon gave Parliament also show Michael Pratt telling KPMG's senior partners that they had a partner out of control and that he expected action. Peer review, Treasury style, is an email to the boss. Transport Secretary Rodd Staples, who backed Brendan Lyon, was dismissed that month. Brendan Lyon alleges bullying, reprisals and pointless disciplinary processes followed, and says Gary Wingrove, then chief executive of KPMG Australia, removed him from the partnership in April or May 2021. Gary Wingrove became KPMG's global chairman and chief executive on 1 October 2026, and nothing says lessons learned like a bigger desk. A 2022 parliamentary inquiry found it was highly inappropriate for NSW Treasury to instruct Brendan Lyon to amend his report. The Audit Office of NSW also reported that 23 reports, 1,023 pages, arrived around midnight on the morning the state accounts were signed. Light bedtime reading. Brendan Lyon's slides explain the bigger picture. Australia lets accounting firms alone run as partnerships of up to 1,000 people, with a legal cap on what they pay when they lose a damages case. Since 2007 the cap covers any service sold for profit, including consulting by people who are not accountants, so a shield for accountants now fits anyone with a business card. Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG earned about $9.8 billion in Australia in 2025, and by Brendan Lyon's count about 75% of it sits under that cap. Risk management has never looked so relaxed. Brendan Lyon built a scenario to show the maths. A firm earns $15 million valuing a super asset that is hard to sell, gets it wrong, and members lose $100 million. The court finds the firm half to blame, the cap trims the award from $50 million to $20 million, insurance pays $19 million and the firm covers a $1 million excess, which is pocket change for a good week. Members are left $30 million short. Spread over 1,000 partners, that is $15,000 each in fees up front and $1,000 each in damages later. Brendan Lyon says disciplinary records at Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand @Chartered_Accts, known as CA ANZ, show no enforcement against any Big Four firm or partner from 2013 to 2026. Policing yourself works wonders when nobody is looking. ASIC @asic_connect chair Sarah Court told Parliament in September that ASIC is reviewing 551 complaints about the Big Four and that its powers reach individual auditors only. On 14 October the Australian Financial Review reported that ASIC found EY and PwC approved a combined $80 billion of unlisted super investments without enough evidence. Reviewing is such a brave word. Brendan Lyon is challenging the cap in the NSW Supreme Court against CA ANZ and the Professional Standards Council of New South Wales, which approved the scheme. He started a fundraiser for his costs and on 7 August won an order limiting what he can be made to pay CA ANZ to $25,000. CA ANZ says its scheme protects consumers through insurance backed compensation, which is a fine name for a shield. Trial is set for 22 June 2027, which leaves plenty of time for more complaints. Brendan Lyon says he lost his partnership for checking the numbers. In his example, getting them wrong costs a partner $1,000. Link to the slides in the comments. Sources: @FinancialReview @asic_connect @accgtimes @claudinecassar @Chartered_Accts, others. --- @stevemiddi1 @MLorrM @Wftproof @johnmcdonnellMP @premnsikka @nw_nicholas @JohnCleese @BankConfidenti1

Sad to see the Canary close after 11 years. It says Lloyds closed its account in June and Metro Bank froze another in September without giving reasons, and debanking with no explanation is a serious worry for independent media.