ESG is increasingly being discussed in the public arena. The issue of ESG is also being raised in the context of the ongoing implementation of whistleblower protection systems in organisations.
Category: Whistleblower
Implementing a whistleblower protection system in Poland, especially in the context of “daughter” companies of foreign corporations, is a challenging process. The Polish law on the protection of whistleblowers, imposes a number of specific obligations that can be difficult to implement within international capital groups. For “daughter” companies, a particular challenge is balancing local requirements with the expectations of foreign owners. When conducting implementations, we often encounter a case in which a Polish company is already the last one in an international group where whistleblower protection must be implemented. In such a situation, it seems rational to adapt solutions already implemented in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands or other countries and adjust them to Polish realities. However, direct transfer of foreign solutions “1:1” is rarely effective. In the same way, it may turn out to be a bad idea to “invent gunpowder anew” and create internal solutions only for the needs of a Polish company. So how to find” the golden mean”?
The saga under the title of ‘whistleblowers’ in Poland continues. Work is currently underway on yet another draft of the whistleblowers act. The history of attempts to implement the Act on whistleblowers into the Polish legal system dates back to 2021, by which time the deadline for implementing the provisions of the EU Directive had passed, and we are currently one of the last EU member states without implemented legislation in this area. In the context of today’s post on periodic employee evaluations, the provisions regulating criminal liability for retaliation against a whistleblower, which appeared in the draft law, will be relevant for us.
The history of draft legislation on whistleblowers is already so long that it is difficult to indicate how many versions have already been presented. Under the terms of the EU Whistleblowers Directive, Poland was obliged to implement it into law in 2021. Unfortunately, despite many attempts and ideas, this has not been achieved to date. A few days ago, a new draft appeared, so this post briefly analyses where we are.
According to the Labour Code, an employee is obliged, among other things, to take care of best interests of the employer’s establishment and protect its property, which is usually further specified in the company’s work regulations. In practice, this means that employees, based on labour law provisions, should, among other things, inform the employer about observed violations, damages to the workplace property, and other identified risks. To some extent, we can expect provisions strengthening this obligation based on the implemented directive on the protection of whistleblowers, which we have been dealing with since its adoption. Recently, another project of the long-awaited law on the protection of persons reporting violations of the law has emerged.
By December 2021, there was a lot of talk in the media about the imminent, passing and finally missed deadline for the Polish whistleblower protection law. In this post I will not analyse the next version of the Act, we did that together with Aleksandra Philips in the post “The final version of the whistleblower protection law getting closer?“. Instead of analising it, I will be happy to share my experience and thoughts from the implementation of the whistleblower protection system we carried out.
Although the protection of whistleblowers in particular has so far been discussed mainly in autumn 2021, this does not mean that the lack of implementation of Directive 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 has completely buried the topic. On the contrary. The holiday period favours the Legislature in drafting more whistleblower protection legislation. Recently, the fourth version has already appeared on the website of the Government Legislation Centre. It is worth keeping your hand on the pulse, as it is still unclear when the actual law will enter into force and activate obligations on the part of companies, as well as what its final form will be.