Bill on Whistleblowers forwarded to the Senate

2024 / 05 / 25

On Thursday, 23 May 2024, the Sejm adopted the bill on protection of whistleblowers. Now the bill will be examined by the Senate. The new law is to implement whistleblower protection standards as defined in EU Directive 2019/1937. Poland delayed the implementation of this Directive for over 2 years.

Changes

The Sejm introduced a number of changes to the whistleblower protection bill, to make the current wording of the proposed law more precise:

In the definition of ‘retaliation’ the word ‘unfounded’ was replaced by ‘groundless’ used in the context of initiating proceedings against a whistleblower.
The definition of a person related to the whistleblower was changed so that ‘whistleblower’s family member’ became ‘whistleblower’s closest person’ within the meaning of the Criminal Code.
The definition of legal proceedings was reworded and now it should be understood as, inter alia, proceedings pending the basis of internal regulations issued with the aim of implementing generally applicable (in particular anti-mobbing) laws.
It was further clarified that a whistleblower is, without limitation, a person who works under the supervision and direction of a contractor, subcontractor or consultant.
The wording of the provision indicating who the Act may apply to has been made more concise by replacing the words ‘or after such employment relationship has been terminated’ with ‘or after termination.’
The list of situations to which the law does not apply was expanded by adding ‘other information that is not subject to disclosure under common law for reasons of public security.’
The deadline for the Ombudsman or another public authority to confirm receipt of an external report was made more precise and it is now 7 days from acceptance of a report (previously: 7 days from receipt of a report).

Time for implementation becomes scarce

The European Court of Justice ordered Poland to pay a penalty of EUR 40,000 per day from the date of the verdict until the adoption of the regulation, and make an additional payment of EUR 7,000,000 as a lump sum to the European Commission as a measure preventing similar violations of EU law in the future.

Given the penalty, it can be expected that work on the whistleblower protection bill will be completed soon. From the perspective of businesses, this will denote the obligation to implement new procedures and processes to guarantee the protection of whistleblowers.

We would like to remind you that the new regulations on whistleblower protection will come into force 3 months after publication in the Journal of Laws, except for provisions on external reporting, which will take effect 6 months after their publication. Thus, the time for implementation and preparation for the planned changes is becoming scarce.

We encourage you to contact Andersen experts for support in the process of adapting to the solutions and for assistance in preparation of the relevant procedures.

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