When we heard that American lawyer Mary Inman was to speak at Byline Festival panel about whistle-blowing, we knew she would be promoting the American False Claims Act, as we had seen articles like "U.S. Law Firm Chases Fraud Tips in Britain" and her own slideshow online with lines such as "It takes a rogue to catch a rogue", "They don't have to have clean hands" and "....Ok if (they) participated in the fraud".

"Bounty hunting" is NOT whistle-blowing so thank you to the Byline with Frontline Club organisers for ensuring that genuine whistle-blowers were given a voice at this event.  The other speakers were Steve Middleton and Dr Chris Day, and the Chair was Ranjan Balakumaran.

Our work and Edna's Law is always evidence-based, so Eileen had phoned Ms Inman's law firm a few days earlier posing as a prospective client and at Byline Festival she reported what that call revealed. When challenged by this, Ms Inman failed to respond (and it was not due to lack of time, as she was allowed to speak for nearly 10 minutes, instead of 4, in her introductory piece).

This promotion of bounty hunting is very detrimental to genuine whistle-blowers because it focuses on money instead of on lives.

Ms Inman's firm Constantine Cannon* is now paying WBUK to be the secretariat for an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Whistle-blowing.  (*the second part of the firm's name was incorrect on the film).

We believe it is against the public interest for bounty hunting US law firms to seek to influence UK law by paying individuals and/or organisations to represent their views in Parliament for their own monetary gain.  We will return to this subject in future updates about those on the APPG, WBUK and Constantine Cannon.   Eileen has written more about this on the Compassion In Care website.  Please see also Dr Minh Alexander's blog and Twitter for what she has to say on bounties and the workings of the American system.

Thank you everyone who has backed Edna's Law.   What the UK needs is NOT American lawyers pretending they want to help whistle-blowers when in reality they are hunting for informants on fraud against the US government so the law firms can make money. What we need is Edna - an effective law which concentrates on protecting lives and on real protection for genuine whistle-blowers, not on making money.