Lately, whistleblower scandals have received more and more attention in the media. Whistleblowers who blow the whistle about internal misconduct and breaches in the workplace are often subject to retaliation that affects their finances, health, and reputation. Protection of whistleblowers against retaliation acts as a safeguard for freedom of expression and freedom and pluralism of the media. Retaliations can exist of early termination or cancellation of an employment or service contract, harassment, loss of income, coercion, business boycotting, or blacklisting. The protection of whistleblowers within the European Union (EU) has been fragmentary for a long time. Some member states have had a high level of protection and detailed legislation, but some member states have had a total absence of such legislation. Therefore, the EU decided to establish a directive, Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (the whistleblower directive or the directive) with common minimum standards for the protection of persons reporting of breaches of Union law. The purpose of the directive is to protect whistleblowers, facilitate the process when reporting and enhance the freedom of speech. Although, the directive has received criticism that the legislation regarding the internal channels that shall be used for reporting is mitigating the purpose of the directive. The directive contains an obligation in the articles 8.1-3 for legal entities in the private sector with at least 50 workers to establish channels and procedures for internal reporting. Article 8.6 stipulates that legal entities starting with 50 up to 249 workers are allowed to share certain resources regarding the internal reporting channels. The wording of the article gives no guidance on how the rules apply to a corporate group. Also, the directive does not contain any definition regarding the word legal entities and what it comprehends. The obscurity of the directive regarding sharing internal reporting channels for corporate groups has led to a debate within the union. Representatives from big corporate groups illustrate the possible inconveniences with the legislation if it does not allow corporate groups to share internal reporting channels. This has resulted in various implementations in the member states, where e.g., Sweden’s national implementation of the directive gives no opportunity for corporate groups to share internal reporting channels, compared to Denmark where corporate groups are allowed to share internal reporting channels. This thesis concludes that the directive shall be interpreted in a way that prohibits corporate groups to share internal reporting channels. The outcome of the interpretation that corporategroups cannot share internal reporting channels results in inter alia increased economic and administrative burden for legal entities, as well as a difficulty to be consistent with the whistleblowing procedure within the group. The fact that the whistleblower needs to report to the legal entity where the person is employed and not to a parent company also makes it easier for the whistleblowing department that receives and processes the reports to conjecture the identity of the whistleblower. Sweden’s interpretation of the directive regarding the internal reporting channels is therefore in line with the whistleblower directive, compared to Denmark where the legislator has opened to allow corporate groups to share internal reporting channels, even though the interpretation is not in accordance with the whistleblower directive.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-207652 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Elm, Vilma |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Juridiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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