Answer – for the most part, roughly where we were three months ago.

In September, we produced a short note setting out the state of play in the EU concerning the implementation of the new Directive on the protection of persons who report breaches of EU law (the Whistleblowing Directive). Very little has changed since then, perhaps unsurprisingly given the emergence of Omicron in the meantime, and it now seems that the vast majority of EU countries will miss this Friday’s 17 December deadline, with any relevant local legislation slipping into 2022. See below our “at a glance” table showing the current status of implementation in certain key European countries.

As the UK has already left the EU, it will not be required to implement the Directive. To the extent UK companies have operations in continental Europe, however, it will of course still be relevant and changes to UK whistleblowing policies and procedures may still be necessary if they are part of a European/global framework.

Belgium	The National Labour Council has given its advice on the draft legislative proposal. The government has indicated that the Belgian Act will be ready by summer 2022.
Czech Republic	A draft law has been published. If it is approved as it currently stands, affected companies will be obliged to: establish internal reporting channels for receiving and processing reports of unlawful conduct by March 2022. Such channels will have to be established by: (i) all companies with more than...

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