Andriesz had unearthed 2018 email chain on Lutnick-Epstein startup
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, which on Monday confirmed it had appointed Lea Paterson to review the matter, had previously apologized to Simon Andriesz after giving him misleading information about his eligibility for whistleblower protection.
Andriesz, a 57-year-old former BGC Group managing director who took his own life late last month, had spent years raising concerns about his former employer and its alleged ties to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The FCA had told Andriesz he would not qualify for whistleblower protection because his identity had become known. The regulator later apologized to him and said further guidance and training would be provided to its whistleblowing team.
Andriesz, who had been living in Cornwall, was a member of the campaign group Transparency Task Force, which confirmed his death over the weekend. He had worked as a managing director at BGC Group, the financial brokerage where Lutnick had been chief executive, before his dismissal in 2017.
Andriesz first raised concerns about accounting irregularities internally at BGC in 2016, a year before he was sacked. In 2020 and 2021, he reportedly told the FBI that Lutnick had undeclared business ties with Epstein, the late financier and sex offender who died awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in August 2019. Lutnick has said he had no “personal or professional relationship” with Epstein.
Andriesz later unearthed an email chain in the Epstein files that suggested Lutnick and Epstein had discussed the prospects of a startup business they were both involved in, in 2018.
In remarks to the BBC’s File on 4 Investigates program earlier this year, Andriesz said authorities in both the US and UK had failed to hold BGC and its parent company, Cantor Fitzgerald, properly accountable, and had failed to protect him from potential retaliation. He later accused the FCA of mistreating whistleblowers, and raised concerns about the toll that whistleblowing had taken on his family, career and health.
The FCA has now tasked Lea Paterson, a recently appointed non-executive board member, to lead an internal review of how the regulator interacted with Andriesz. “We are very sorry to hear of Mr Andriesz’s death,” an FCA spokesperson said. “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.”
But the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on investment fraud and fairer financial services has questioned the independence of the process. The group’s chair, Labour MP John McDonnell, said the FCA should not be allowed to “mark its own homework” and called on the regulator to engage an outside party “to forensically and objectively evaluate its handling of whistleblowers.”
“It is vital that this time a truly independent and non-conflicted organisation carries out the work needed,” McDonnell said. “If the FCA refuses to respond positively, the APPG will consider all alternatives, including conducting its own call for evidence from whistleblowers who have interacted with the regulator.”
Lutnick has not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, and has previously said: “I unequivocally condemn the conduct attributed to Jeffrey Epstein and everyone who participated in his illegal activities. The survivors of his crimes deserve our respect and support.”
A spokesperson for BGC said: “BGC has long disputed Mr Andriesz’s allegations but does not intend to relitigate these matters at this sad time. BGC is sorry to hear this tragic news and expresses our condolences to Mr Andriesz’s family.”