Workshop 8: Best Practices in Investigations: Retaliation and Malicious Complaints
Workshop 8 aims to introduce advanced and proactive investigative approaches to distinguish legitimate disclosures from malicious reports, detect both overt and covert retaliation (including digital forms), and strengthen institutional capacity to safeguard reporting systems. Participants will leave with tools and methods they can immediately apply to assess, investigate, and prevent both retaliation and abuse of complaint channels.
Xuan Gao (AIIB)
Xuan Gao is Principal Ethics Officer with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Prior to that, Xuan served the legal functions of FAO, AIIB, IFAD, EBRD, INTERPOL and the central bank of China in different positions from 1999. He has published some twenty books and articles on international law and governance with Oxford, Brill and Kluwer and has been the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Manchester Journal of International Economic Law since 2011. He is an accredited arbitrator with Shanghai Arbitration Court.
Xuan studied economics at Peking Uni, and law at CUPL (LLB), Manchester (LLM and PhD) and Oxford (MSt).
Rachel Cocker (ADB)
Rachel is an investigation specialist with over a decade of experience in criminal, integrity and misconduct investigations. She currently serves in the Office of Anticorruption and Integrity at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), where she is part of the Internal Investigations Team responsible for handling complex cases involving staff misconduct and integrity violations.
Prior to joining ADB, Rachel held investigative roles in the United Kingdom, including with the Independent Police Complaints Commission in London, where she investigated criminal and misconduct allegations involving police officers. She also worked with the Financial Ombudsman Service, investigating misconduct matters.
Her cross-sector experience spans law enforcement, financial oversight, and international development, bringing a unique and rigorous approach to institutional integrity.
Meaghan Burton (UN OIOS)
Meaghan is a senior investigator with the Investigations Division, OIOS. She is the Chief of the Division’s Operational Standards and Support section which has responsibilities for policy, procedure and quality assurance functions in respect of OIOS’ administrative investigations. She is also responsible for managing investigations into requests for protection against retaliation. She has demonstrated experience in investigating senior officials in respect of complaints of harassment and abuse of authority. Meaghan regularly delivers training to qualify lay-staff members to conduct investigations into such claims. In addition to complaints relating to whistleblowers, Meaghan’s work also focuses on the investigation of sexual harassment complaints and in strengthening the Organization’s victim centered approach to investigations.
Katherine Delikoura (CEB)
Katherine has over 19 years of experience investigating matters involving fraud, corruption, retaliation, and other workplace conduct issues. Serving as Senior Investigator at the International Monetary Fund’s Office of Internal Investigations (IMF OII) since 2018, Katherine is responsible for supervising and leading administrative investigations. Katherine has been leading the development of a newly revised Protection Against Retaliation Policy to strengthen existing mechanisms for addressing retaliation claims at IMF. Her previous work experience includes the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Australian Public Service, namely the New South Wales (NSW) Crime Commission, NSW Police Force, and NSW Independent Commission against Corruption. Katherine is an accredited Equal Employment Opportunity Investigator, Workplace Mediator and Trainer, Certified Fraud Examiner, and holds a BA and Master’s degree in Criminology.
