What are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing or keeping in-house the management of ethical and reporting channels?

The Council of Ministers approved earlier this year (4 March 2022) the preliminary draft law on the protection of persons who report breaches of EU law and anti-corruption regulations, which transposes EU Directive 2019/1937 known as the Whistleblowing Directive.

This European regulation requires private companies with 50 or more employees to provide their staff and third parties with an ethics or reporting channel, the management of which may be outsourced.

In Spain, since the introduction of article 31 bis of the Criminal Code by means of LO 1/2015 of 30 March, the scope and regulation of compliance programmes have experienced exponential growth. The culture of compliance is progressively taking root in the business world and, consequently, so is its expansion and development.

Reporting channels

One of the key elements of a compliance programme is the existence of an ethical or reporting channel for internal breaches or illicit activities of the company that makes it feasible to report possible risks to the organisation's compliance body.

Against this background, the Whistleblowing Directive aims to ensure the protection of whistleblowers, avoid conflicts of interest, safeguard the integrity of the investigation and the assessment of potential risks, and prevent breaches of the compliance programme.

Although the Whistleblowing Directive has been...

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