We have been closely monitoring the range of obligations that will be brought about by the introduction of the mandatory Whistle-blower Protection (whistleblowing), which has been introduced on the European level by the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law. Member States are obliged to implement that directive into national law by 17 December 2021. However. The directive leaves a certain room for the member states as to how exactly the new conditions, limits and obligations for Whistle-blower Protection in companies will be set. To our information, Denmark is currently the only member state that has already completed the implementation of this directive into national law.

It is already apparent that, in general terms, there will be an obligation for enterprises to put in place an internal system for receiving confidential and, preferably anonymous, reports of infringements from employees and other persons working for the enterprise, and to evaluate them independently and confidentially. According to the Directive, this obligation will apply to all enterprises with more than 50 employees. However, the current Czech government draft bill lowers this threshold to 25 employees.

At the moment, due to the ongoing legislative process, it is not possible to provide further details, but as soon as the legislative process progresses to its final stages, we will prepare for you more detailed information as well as a seminar/webinar on this topic.

Nonetheless, we have already established a cooperation with a technology partner from Denmark, which, as mentioned, is so far the only EU country to have adopted the directive into national legislation and is gaining first practical experience with Whistleblowing. We are currently working intensively on synchronizing their technical solution, which meets the requirements under the European Directive, with the expected contents of the Czech law so that we can offer our clients a comprehensive legal and technical solution to the newly imposed obligations.

Do not hesitate to contact us in case of queries.