In June 2020, the Whistleblower Protection Act of Japan (Act No. 122 of 2004) (the “Act”) was amended for the first time in 14 years. This amendment to the Act (the “Amended Act”) came into force on June 1, 2022.
Basically, the Act was enacted to protect workers, employees and officers of companies/organizations who “whistleblow” (the “Whistleblowers”) from being treated detrimentally (such as dismissal) due to their whistleblowing, although certain requirements for protection have to be met.
The Act prior to the amendment consisted mainly of provisions that restrict the misconducts of business operators (i.e., companies/organizations; the same applies hereinafter), such as prohibiting the detrimental treatment of Whistleblowers by business operators. The Amended Act requires the active involvement of business operators, for example, it obliges them to establish the Whistleblowing System (defined in the following section 1). It also provides for administrative disposition, criminal penalties (fines) and administrative penalties (non-criminal fines) to be imposed for any violation concerning whistleblowing; which means that the Amended Act has a significant impact on corporate practices.
The Amended Act is deemed to apply to business operators in Japan only1 , and not to those outside Japan. However, in the case where you have any subsidiaries in Japan, certain provisions of the 1 Please refer to page 50 of the exhibit “Public comments on the ‘(Draft) Guideline for Business...
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