Published on 26 oktober 2021
Whereas Denmark and Sweden have already implemented the EU directive in their national legislation, the Netherlands are at risk of being delayed. Dutch parliament has criticized the Whistleblower Protection Act. A large majority requests that the introduction will be postponed, so that the Ministry can come up with a better bill. Does this mean that you don’t have to do anything yet? We don’t think so.
The EU directive is very clear on the internal whistleblower procedure that organizations have to implement and the Dutch law will only change this to a limited extent. You can therefore already draw up draft procedures and discuss them with your Dutch Works Council. The discussion with the Works Council will take some time anyway. Should the scope of the bill eventually be amended or the list of external authorities that can be notified be changed, then the procedure can be rewritten quickly, if necessary. In the mean time you can already consider who you are going to appoint as the integrity coordinator, the coordinator of the whistleblowing procedure, whether this person needs further training, whether you want to facilitate anonymous reporting or not, whether you want to use an external reporting platform and if so, which one.
Even if the introduction of the Dutch law is postponed, there is a chance, especially in the public sector, that a judge will take the new EU directive into account when they have to review a whistleblowing case after December 17 2021. This is another reason why organizations should bring their procedures in line with the EU directive and the draft Dutch bill as soon as possible.
