The Whistleblower Protection Act is finally moving forward in Finland
GOVERNMENT of the prime minister Sanna Marin (SDP) presented its proposal on the implementation of the European Union’s whistleblowing directive last week. reports Helsingin sanomat newspaper.
The purpose of the directive is to detect and prevent abuses and violations of laws and regulations. establish confidential and secure reporting channels to protect whistleblowers from retaliation; and to protect and enable whistleblowers to voice their concerns without fear of retaliation.
Protections exist not only for current employees, but also for job seekers, former employees, whistleblower advocates, and journalists.
The directive was supposed to enter into force in the entire 27-nation bloc at the end of last year, but national implementation has been delayed in several member states, including Finland.
Helsingin Sanomat wrote on Tuesday that Finnish law prohibits organizations from retaliating against, for example, an employee who reports misconduct. Violation of the ban or preventing an employee from making a report may result in an obligation to compensate or an obligation to pay the employee.
According to the bill, private companies with 50–249 employees must implement an internal channel that enables anonymous reporting of abuses by December 17, 2023. Companies with more than 250 employees must implement such a channel within three months of the law’s approval. The obligation to establish a channel also applies to some smaller organizations in the financial sector.
Whistleblowers who do not have access to such a channel, or who have good reason to believe that an internal report would be ineffective, may also submit their report to the chancellor’s office or the chancellor’s office.
The bill also provides protections for the subject of the report to prevent unnecessary damage to the subject’s reputation.
Juha KeränenA ministerial assistant at the Ministry of Justice told Helsingin Sanomat that he hopes that the bill will be approved as soon as possible, despite the backlog of proposals in parliament. He added that about half of the EU countries continue to work on the national implementation of the directive.
He said that the goal of the law is to create effective protection for persons who report abuses related to consumer protection, financial services, food safety or public procurement, among other things. The scope of the bill also includes illegal activity that threatens or causes harm to the common good, violates taxation rules and is related to the EU economy and the internal market.
The EU directive refers to a total of 138 regulations that are affected by the directive.
Keränen told Helsingin Sanomat that at least 200 laws have been implemented in Finland, depending on the way of counting. The scope of the national bill is wider than the minimum requirement, so that the author of the notification does not have to be familiar with the constantly evolving scope of EU regulations.
For example, all tax crimes are covered by the bill.
– It can be difficult for the supplier to know whether it is an EU regulation. That is why national regulation has been included in the bill,” he explained, adding that the same approach seems to have been taken in most other member states.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT