On April 16, 2019, the EU Parliament approved a draft directive for new harmonized rules on the protection of whistleblowers. The Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Protection of Persons reporting on Breaches of Union Law (the “Whistleblowing Directive”) creates EU-wide minimum standards to protect persons disclosing information to which they are privy in the context of their work and which relates to certain breaches of EU law. These include breaches of the rules on public procurement, financial services, money laundering, environmental protection and nuclear safety, EU competition law, food and product safety, consumer and data protection law.

The EU Council and the Parliament have now reached a provisional agreement on the final act. After formal approval, the Whistleblowing Directive will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union, after which Member States have two years to implement the Directive into national law. The below is based on the current version of the draft, which may of course still undergo changes before the final approval.

Click here to read the full version of this alert, authored by Crowell & Moring Partner Emmanuel Plasschaert, and Associates Evelina Roegiers and Louis Vanderdonckt.