Germany's Federal Ministry of Justice submitted a new draft bill to transpose the EU Whistleblower Protection Directive. The EU Whistleblower Protection Directive should have been transposed by 17 December 2021 already. This is why the European Commission recently initiated infringement proceedings against Germany and other countries. Germany's first draft bill of 2020 had failed due to content-related disagreements between the government parties at that time.
The draft bill largely corresponds to the Directive. It goes beyond its requirements only in individual aspects. In summary:
Protected individuals
The aim of the law is to protect individuals who report breaches from dismissal, mobbing or other retaliation. As in the Directive, protected individuals include
Material scope
The material scope of the German draft bill goes beyond the requirements of the Directive. The material scope of the Directive is limited to reports of suspected violations of EU law. The German draft bill in addition covers any reports of suspected criminal offenses and suspected administrative offenses that protect the life, limb or health or rights of employees or their representative bodies.
Internal and external reporting channels
The draft bill...
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