Whistleblowing at the start line

On 29 December 2017 the so-called Whistleblowing law has entered into force and it has been published on the Official Gazette No. 179 dated 14 December 2017 after having been approved on 30 November. The law, which comprises only three articles, has the specific goal of introducing protection measures in our legislation, for employees (public and private) who report offenses or violations of which they have become aware during the employment relationship. In order to make this crime fighting mechanism operative, for employees in the private sector the regulation modifies legislative decree 231/01 by changing the magnitude of the provisions in article 6. In particular, organizational models now must include: (i) the enabling of channels for the submittal of reporting, which must mandatorily ensure anonymity of the submitting party, (ii) the fact that any reporting must be founded on specific and consistent elements and (iii) the models must be setup with a built-in penalty system that can, on the one hand, punish those who breach the safety measures of the whistleblower and, on the other hand, punish any whistleblower who submits unfounded reports. In light of the above, it will be necessary to update the organizational models, including in it a monitoring mechanism that can protect the whistleblower against any third party repercussions and capable of preventing the occurrence of offenses.