Whistleblowing Directive - Local Implementation Update (Webinar)

We provided an overview perspective on EU Whistleblowing Directive: Local Implementation which includes updates on the latest EU employment and compliance developments.

The European Whistleblowing Directive (WBD) was supposed to be implemented by the European Union's 27 member states by no later than 17 December 2021, impacting employers with operations in those jurisdictions.

One year on from this deadline, despite the European Commission (EC) commencing infringement procedures against those countries that had failed to implement the WBD in January 2022, we are still waiting for 11 EU member states to do so. Whilst legislation is still awaited in a number of jurisdictions, we are now in a much better position to see the challenges the European Whistleblowing Directive poses for global employers.

In this webinar, you may find the following practical takeaways to keep in mind for 2023 in Europe including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands to help navigate the new landscape. In addition, we will explore the following:

• Overview of regulatory changes and what actions companies should consider
• Satisfying the internal reporting channel obligation, and how that fits within existing global whistleblowing frameworks
• How can the confidentiality of the identity of a whistleblower be safeguarded
• How should whistleblowing reports be processed and followed up
• What is the scope of the protection of whistleblowers
• Which sanction can be imposed in case of non-compliance
• How to assess privacy issues arising from the EU WBD

Should you wish to explore this further ahead of the webinar, please see our recent publication Baker McKenzie - One Year On: The EU Whistleblowing Directive. The publication includes a link to our recently launched whitepaper EU Whistleblowing Directive: Act Now to make your Whistleblowing Program compliant, which provides further practical insights into WBD compliance, and information on our multijurisdictional analysis matrix solution.