Summary
The upcoming regulations to implement the EU Whistleblower Directive will definitely have an impact on companies in Belgium. Some companies will have to plan ahead to implement internal reporting systems in their organization. This will require processes, budget and people. All companies will in any case have to be prepared to deal with employees who blow the whistle, be it through an external procedure. Even if raising concerns is considered part of corporate/good governance, it still remains to be seen if this change in regulation will encourage (more) people to speak up (more) and help foster a cultural change where one feels comfortable enough to bring issues to the table.
1. The State of the Law in Belgium…
Like many other member states of the European Union (EU), Belgium failed to timely transpose the EU Whistleblower Directive No. 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019 (EU Whistleblower Directive), into national legislation. The deadline of 17 December 2021 was not met, reason why the European Commission sent an official warning to our country.
However, since January 2022, government negotiations started on two preliminary draft laws transposing the EU Whistleblower Directive, one for the private sector and one for the public sector. The aim was to adopt both of them before or by 21 July 2022, but this has not been the case.
Hence, whistleblowing currently [1] is not regulated in Belgium (with some exceptions for the financial industry and public sector) and there...
Congress leaders Harshwardhan Sapkal and Nana Patole, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) legislator Rohit Pawar, and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said PM Modi's sp...