Whistleblower protection standards due to come into force across the European Union next month appear to be equally defined by what the legislation has got right and wrong.
The EU Whistleblowing Directive—which must be transposed into national law by Dec. 17—aims to protect individuals who speak up about possible wrongdoing, as well as those associated with them who may have facilitated the whistleblowing (including colleagues and relatives).
The legislation requires companies with more than 50 employees to implement effective internal mechanisms to enable workers to report and escalate concerns, as well as try to prevent retaliation against them.
However, critics have pointed out multiple flaws. As the directive needs to be transposed into national law, there will likely be 27 variations of the same rules offering differing levels of protection. For companies with pan-EU operations, this could create a compliance nightmare about whom employees report to first (and how).
“If the company simply dismissed a report because it lacked detail, that could say more about its whistleblowing reporting system than the actual complaint,” said Professor of Business Ethics Wim Vandekerckhove during a panel discussion on the EU Whistleblowing Directive at Compliance Week’s virtual Europe event.
Moreover, the directive does not define whistleblowing—a major problem when the term does not exist in some languages. Instead, it refers to protecting individuals who report “breaches of European...
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