All 27 EU Member States have to transpose the EU Directive 2019/1937 dated 23 October 2019 on the “protection of persons who report breaches of Union law” (hereinafter the “EU Whistleblower Directive”) into the national law by 17 December 2021. From this date, the EU Whistleblower Directive will apply not only to companies that have their registered office in an EU Member State, but also to all public and private sector organisations operating in the EU internal market.

As a general matter, the EU Whistleblower Directive requires EU Member States to adopt common minimum standards respecting the protection of would-be whistleblowers who report violations of EU law in several areas including, but not limited to i) public procurement, ii) financial services, iii) product, food and feed safety and compliance, iv) protection of the environment; v) consumer protection and vi) protection of privacy and personal data.

Regulatory Compliance Manager Alex Cotoia has recently published an informative and clear open-access four-part series on the EU Whistleblower Directive. Find all of them here: Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.