Last March, Italy passed the Legislative Decree n. 24/2023, which implemented the EU Directive n. 2019/1937 introducing relevant changes and obligations for employers in terms of whistleblowing. As a result, companies with operations in Italy should now be careful when they receive a report of a wrongdoing, as no adverse decision can be taken against the employee whistleblower, and a specific procedure must be followed. Below we highlight the key things that employers with operations in Italy should know.
Given whistleblowers’ exposure and risk of retaliation as a result of their reporting activity in the employment context, the Italian Decree has provided a special protection and strengthened the Judge’s power to declare the employee’s dismissal null and void or any other adverse decision by the employer (e.g., failure to renew a fixed-term employment contract) as retaliatory when it is ascertained that these decisions have been grounded solely on the reporting activity of the employee.
This is not a big change, as retaliatory decisions in Italy have always been sanctioned by Italian Judges, even without a specific regulation on whistleblowing reports. However, the most relevant change introduced by the Italian Decree concerns the extension of the number of companies that are now obliged to adopt an internal channel for receiving and handling reports sent by whistleblowers.
Before the implementation of the Decree, the obligation was just on the companies adopting and...
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