Join Baker McKenzie for their EU Whistleblowing Directive: Local Implementation Update webinar on Wednesday 29 March 2023 at 14:00 UK / 15:00 Madrid which includes updates on the latest EU employment and compliance developments.
Spanish Official State Gazette published Law 2/2023 on 20 February 2023, which transposes the EU Whistleblower Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of European Union law) into Spanish law.
On 23 October 2019, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law, informally referred to as the “EU Whistleblower Directive”.
Belgium has implemented the EU Whistleblower Directive separately for the public and the private sectors, with the Act of 8 December 2022 on reporting channels and protection of whistleblowers in federal public sector bodies and the integrated police, and the Act of 28 November 2022 on the protection of whistleblowers of breaches of Union or national law established within a legal entity in the private sector, published on 15 December 2022, which came into effect on 15 February 2023.
The European Whistleblowing Directive (WBD) was supposed to be implemented by the European Union’s 27 member states by no later than 17th December 2021, impacting employers with operations in those jurisdictions.
This article looks at what those key challenges are and the unique support we can offer in helping global employers harmonize their global approach to managing whistleblowing reports within the prescriptive requirements of the WBD.
The Belgian act implementing EU Directive 2019/1937 (“Whistleblower Act”) requires legal entities in the private sector to establish channels and procedures for internal reporting and follow-up of reports in specific areas. In this context, the Whistleblower Act established a particular method to calculate the employee headcount within the legal entity with reference to the Belgian legislation on the social elections. However, there has been some uncertainty about how this reference should be applied in the context of the Whistleblower Act.
On 1 February 2023, the Austrian National Council passed the so-called Whistleblower Protection Act (HinweisgeberInnenschutzgesetz). This law regulates a set of obligations for companies in relation to whistleblowing, with the setup of an internal “whistle-blowing system” a priority. This new law will come into force shortly — following a formal confirmation by the Federal Council of Austria, which is still pending. The Austrian legislator is finally implementing the requirements of the EU Whistleblower Directive, although with a delay of more than a year.
In brief This publication features the latest Employment developments in Italy. New laws and regulations Extension of the right to work remotely A new law recently extended, until 31 March 2023, the right of vulnerable employees to work in agile mode. However, the right to work remotely was not extended…
The German Bundestag passed the German Whistleblower Protection Act on 16 December 2022. After initially not being expected to be passed this year, the bill did make it onto the agenda of the last session day of the year at short notice and was passed in a version amended by the Legal Affairs Committee (Rechtsausschuss) with the coalition’s majority. The next step is for the Bundesrat to approve the bill. However, this is not expected until the first plenary session in February 2023 at the earliest.
On 9 December 2022, the Italian Government preliminary approved the draft legislative decree implementing Directive EU 2019/1937 (so called “Whistleblowing Directive”), aimed at protecting whistleblowers against retaliation and other negative consequences.
This publication features the latest Employment developments in Italy, including the Whistleblowing Directive expected to be implemented by the Italian Government no later than 10 December 2022