The news that HM Revenue & Customs used privileges granted to it under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 (Ripa) to investigate Osita Mba, the lawyer and whistleblower who drew attention to the Goldman Sachs tax settlement (among other cases) is deeply worrying for a number of reasons.

First, as I have learned during the time I have known Mba, he is a deeply ethical man. He may have broken ranks precisely because he felt the law was not being complied with, but I am sure he was wise enough to have known that the case would have fallen apart if he broke the law in the process. Yet HMRC seemingly failed to appreciate that. Was the possibility that Mba might have acted entirely ethically and within constraints he knew existed beyond HMRC’s comprehension? We should all worry about ethics being degraded within the HMRC.   Article