EU Whistleblowing Directive: Key Requirements for Organizations in Scope

Alja Poler De Zwart has spoken to Thomson Reuters Practical Law as part of two video briefings that provide an overview of the EU Whistleblowing Directive.

In this second video briefing, Alja discusses the Directive’s requirements, including rules on internal and external reporting channels, anonymous reporting, handling and responding to reports, and whistleblower rights and protections.

“The Directive brings a host of important changes. The key ones include that entities with a minimum of 50 workers have to comply with the Directive. ‘Workers’ not ‘employees’ in the definition, because ‘workers’ is a broader term that includes full- and part-time employees, trainees, interns, and fixed contract workers. The very next important change is about who can blow the whistle. Until the Directive, hotlines were open just to employees, but now whistleblowers can be any individual who has information on violations of EU Law in a work-related context. These include current and former employees, job applicants, suppliers, business partners, volunteers, and even facilitators. Most importantly, colleagues and relatives can be whistleblowers. So hotlines must now be open to the public, not only employees or workers.”

View the second video. 

View the first briefing in the series: EU Whistleblowing Directive: introduction.