On Thursday 5 May 2022, Van Olmen & Wynant organised an Employment Forum regarding the upcoming whistleblowing legislation in Belgium. More than 60 in-house counsels, HR managers and legal experts attended the event at De Warande in Brussels.
Gautier Busschaert and Pieter Pecinovsky of VOW's Employment team started the forum with a presentation on the draft legislative rules regarding the private sector in Belgium, including the following topics:
- European context or the upcomign rules (the EU whistlebower directive)
- Scope of the rules
- Conditions for protection of whistleblowers (and others)
- Internal reporting (within companies)
- External reporting
- Public disclosures
- Confidentiality obligations
- Protection measures
- Sanctions
In addition, they gave a first assessment of the draft rules for the public sector (mostly focussing on the federal level).
Next, we invited Jan Stappers of Navex to the floor. In the context of our new partnership with WhistleB (by Navex), Jan gave an insight to common issues that companies all over Europe face when trying to implement internal reporting channels and when operating the system. More info in WhistleB can be found here.
In case you have questions relating to the whistleblower legislation or regarding the practical implementation of reportings systems or a policy, please contact gautier.buschaert@vow.be or pieter.pecinovsky@vow.be.
Some photos of the event:
