nChainUK welcomes victory in “absurd” whistleblowing case as court rules allegations were “entirely without substance”

The board and shareholders of nChain UK welcomed the rejection by the London Central Employment Tribunal of whistleblowing case made by former senior executives

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, June 30, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- LONDON, UK: The board and shareholders of nChain UK welcomed today [30 June 2026] the rejection by the London Central Employment Tribunal of a whistleblowing case made by two former senior executives.
The tribunal rejected outright the two claimants’ primary allegations that they had been unfairly dismissed for whistleblowing, saying that neither of them made any protected disclosures.
On the key matter of alleged whistleblowing the three-strong panel of the tribunal found in favour of nChain, a blockchain patent company, ruling that the conspiracy theories put forward by David Brookes and Andrew Moody were “absurd”, “entirely without substance”, and “appear to be very much reverse engineered”. In short, “they were not whistleblowers”.
The company showed the tribunal the real reason the men were dismissed was their involvement in an office fracas. This prompted an internal disciplinary process which ended with the men being dismissed for gross misconduct.
“This ruling is not just a major victory for nChain, it is a victory for common sense and justice, with the complete rejection of any claim about whistleblowing,” said nChain Board director Elena Spiers-King. “In a nascent industry like the tech sector, where so much is pioneering, new and uncharted, it is sometimes too easy for dishonest actors to shape their own narratives, to confect conspiracy theories and seek to take advantage by intimidation.
“The two claimants were dismissed for gross misconduct, as the tribunal has found. We welcome as a company the opportunity now to put this sordid matter behind us”.
The tribunal was asked to rule on the dismissal from nChain of two former senior employees: Mr Brookes, a qualified lawyer who served as nChain’s Group General Counsel, and Mr Moody, an accountant who served as nChain’s Group Chief Financial Officer.
They were both dismissed by the company in November 2023 on the grounds of gross misconduct following on their involvement in a chaotic day on 27 September 2023 at the nChain London office when what amounted to an attempted coup was mounted.
In scenes more reminiscent of a mob rampage than a city office, documents were shredded, an IT staff member so seriously threatened he was physically sick, CCTV security cameras taped over, cables pulled out and attempts made to gain unfettered access to nChain’s servers.
The attempt to take over the company was staged by its then Chief Executive Christen Ager-Hanssen. Without grounds he claimed a refinancing deal for nChain arranged in the summer of 2023 was fraudulent and used this unfounded conspiracy theory to galvanise supporters to take over the office and steal the company’s data.
Mr Brookes and Mr Moody’s support of Mr Ager-Hanssen and involvement in the disgraceful office rampage of 27 September led to their suspension. This led to a full and proper disciplinary process, as well as a full investigation by the law firm Jones Day, which did not uphold the allegations of impropriety and was noted by the judge in his ruling as “rigorous and independent”.
They later claimed they had in fact been dismissed for whistleblowing – the act of making public valuable information about corporate malpractice – and took the company to the Employment Tribunal seeking damages for unfair dismissal. These claims were shown by the ruling to be groundless.
The Tribunal rejected their whistleblowing claims completely, showing they were not whistleblowers as there was no malpractice and nor could the pair reasonably have believed there to be.
The ruling found that “neither claimant had a genuine belief” in the claims they made. Mr Brookes “was simply someone who was prepared to do Mr Ager-Hanssen’s bidding in order to further Mr Ager-Hanssen’s own agenda. He cannot have believed in the conspiracy theories.” Mr Moody was “prepared to be dishonest for Mr Ager-Hanssen”, going so far as to be “prepared to include misleading information in his financial reports, in contravention of his professional duties as an accountant”.
The judge found: “Both Mr Brookes and Mr Moody were, therefore, each entirely responsible for the reasons why they were dismissed.”
While accepting nChain acted properly, the tribunal found one procedural error was made in the case of Mr Moody. Nevertheless the court concluded that “it is inconceivable that Mr Moody would not have been dismissed, given the weight of evidence of his misconduct”, leading the court to give no award of any kind to him.
nChain said it took note of the secondary ruling by the tribunal of minor failings in its internal disciplinary procedures. It said it was committed to the highest standards of employment law and working conditions and would move swiftly to remedy any shortcomings.
Lawyers acting for nChain welcome the ruling. Steven Cochrane, of CMS, said: “We welcome the Tribunal’s findings that neither claimant made any protected disclosures and that the whistleblowing complaints have been rejected in their entirety. The Tribunal has held that the central allegation – that our clients had subjected whistleblowers to detriment – was entirely without substance.
“The judgment vindicates our clients completely on these matters and conversely makes notable adverse findings on the reliability of the Claimants’ evidence, going as far as to state that both Claimants had been dishonest.”
The case was heard from 19th January to 6th February 2026 by the London Central Employment Tribunal, sitting in Holborn, London.
Mr Ager-Hanssen was also dismissed for gross misconduct after leading the attempted takeover of the company in September 2023. He is now a fugitive from British justice having fled British jurisdiction after being given a 10-month jail sentence for a series of acts of contempt of court, including a refusal to return nChain property to the company. He was also declared bankrupt in the UK, Norway, and Sweden, as well as being investigated on a separate criminal matter in Norway.

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