Practice area
Where an internal investigation meets employment law
An investigation into an individual's conduct usually has to satisfy two audiences at once — an employment tribunal and a regulator — on different standards, at different times.
What the work is#
Investigations that keep the finding separate from the decision
The investigation establishes what happened. The employment decision is taken by someone else, on that record. Tribunals have been sharply critical of processes where those two collapse into each other, and of investigation reports written by people who did not conduct the investigation.
Regulatory references and regulated functions
In the UK, a financial institution may need to give a regulatory reference before an individual can take up another regulated role. Done properly it serves the regulator, the former employer and the individual alike. Done late or thinly it serves none of them.
Protected disclosures, tested rather than assumed
Where a disclosure has been made, the disclosure itself is evidence and needs to be examined on its own terms — independently of whether the person who made it is popular, and independently of the conduct question that sits beside it.
Evidence that survives two forums
A tribunal and a regulator want different things from the same facts, on different standards, with different disclosure. Material gathered for one and reused for the other without thought is where most of the difficulty arises.
Who instructs this#
- Financial institutions with a conduct matter touching a regulated function
- In-house legal and HR who need the investigation done by someone outside the reporting line
- Employment solicitors who need the evidence gathered to a standard they can rely on
- Boards and audit committees where the subject is senior
What you end up holding#
- An investigation report that separates the evidence from the inference
- A documented chain from each finding back to the material that supports it
- Where instructed, support for the regulatory reference that follows
- A record built to be disclosed, because it usually is
Evidence the practice has done this#
The dossier's conduct and employment section works Staley v FCA [2025] UKUT 00203 (TCC) on integrity and openness with the regulator, and HBOS Reading with the Masterton disclosure — a whistleblower-detriment matter built on a real fraud — alongside two anonymised composites on a regulated-function referral and a protected disclosure independently tested.
The composites are labelled as composites on their face. The named matters rest on the judgment and the regulator's own published notices.
- →Conduct, ethics & employment
- →James (Jes) Staley v FCA
- →HBOS Reading & the Masterton disclosure
- →Senior-executive misconduct & a regulated-function referral
Where to look yourself#
The official sources this work runs on. All free, all published by the body that made the record.
Every engagement begins with a discussion
Scope, people and approach are set once the matter is known, and put in writing before any work starts. The first conversation is free.
probative.io is a research and investigations practice, not a law firm, and does not provide legal advice. This page describes the work the practice does and the sources it uses. It states no view on any particular matter, and nothing here should be read as advice on one.