You discover what you believe is fraud, wrongdoing or deception within your company. Do you report the activity to a direct supervisor in hopes the alleged error can be resolved? Do you take it a step further and go to human resources. Do you fear reprisal and retribution?

Eric Ben-Artzi, a former Wall Street quantitative risk analyst at Deutsche Bank, discovered what he believed was evidence of multi-million dollar securities violations at the bank – then reported what he found to supervisors, who did nothing to correct the issue, then to the Securities and Exchange Commission. His story was told in a series of articles in Financial Times, a prestigious media outlet in the financial industry.

Ben-Artzi was not thanked for discovering the perceived error. Instead, he was fired for blowing the whistle. He has filed a civil suit with the U.S. Department of Labor, against the bank. An SEC investigation is ongoing.

Sponsored by the Government Accountability Project’s American Whistleblower Tour and the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business’ School of Accountancy, Ben-Artzi shared his story Monday evening, Jan. 27, at Lowder Hall with roughly 400 students, faculty and members of the community. The event was moderated by Dana Gold, Senior GAP fellow and Director of the Whistleblower Tour.

“Whistleblowers are the first line of defense against wrong doing and there are people who need to be supported for their courage and willingness to be ethical in the workplace,” she said. “These are the people we want in our organizations.”

The issue’s infancy began as Ben-Artzi, and two other analysts who were not named, noticed a glitch and began asking questions.

“I questioned how risks were assessed and thought that they were just mistakes,” he told the audience. “At first, I wasn’t going to say anything. What I saw going on seemed so blatant. I thought experts elsewhere not in my group were correcting it. Gradually, my concerns grew. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that something was very wrong. They were undermining the soundness of the financial system.”

His concerns: the Germany-based bank failed to accurately report the value of its credit derivatives portfolio, specifically between 2007 and 2010.

Why did Ben-Artzi choose to blow the whistle rather than remain quiet?

“I think it was the combination of the outrage that they were doing it and, on top of that in a sense, I could have been implicated,” he said after the presentation. “If I hadn’t spoken up, I could have potentially been implicated as an accomplice to what I considered was fraud.

“Those who knew what was going on isolated me and talked to me in a different way. It was clear that I needed to put everything in writing and be very transparent,” he said. “I was careful about every e-mail I wrote.”

Ben-Artzi said he was reassigned to other projects, requested a transfer and then fired in 2011 after “positive” performance reviews.

Spencer Owen, a junior in marketing from Wetumpka, asked Ben-Artzi if he encouraged students to one day blow the whistle on alleged corruption.

“That’s hard to answer, depending on the circumstances,” Ben-Artzi said. “It’s a question of how long can you survive without a job. If you are outraged then you probably don’t have a choice – you have to do this anyway. If you are not outraged, then you are probably better off finding another way of dealing with it and protecting yourself.”

Ben-Artzi urged students to report such findings in anonymity, if possible, but noted that coming forward with a name carries more credibility to the story.

“We all live with a conscious,” Owen said. “When it becomes distressful, no amount of money or job security can clear you conscious. Only doing the ethical thing can.”