all about whistleblowing

Whistleblower Protection in 10 European Countries

Transparency International (TI) released a report about whistleblower protection of 10 Europeacountries, including Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and  Slovakia, titled "Alternative to Silence: Whistleblower Protection in 10 European Countries." The report examines political and cultural context, legislations, and current policies and practices of whistleblowing.

According to this report, only Romania has a single piece of whistleblower protection legislation, a Whistleblower Protection Act [Law 571]. Hungary and Lithuania are currently considering comprehensive legislations of whistleblower protection. Especially, Hungary issued a draft whistleblower protection bill which contains a reward system.   

In conclusion, the report recommends 5 things to improve whistleblower protection system for all 10 countries. 

1. Cultural change: Negative connotations surrounding whistleblowing and a lack of political will are crucial factors to make whistleblower protection system ineffective. There is a need to raise awareness about the significant role of whistleblowers who can detect wrongdoings in public and private organizations.  

2. Comprehensive legal protection: Effective legal provisions and enforcement mechanisms are necessary to build effective whistleblowing mechanism.

3. Effective reporting and protection mechanisms in organizations: Employer leadership is necessary to establish such mechanism.  

4. Data collection: An independent public organization should systematically collect data about whistleblowing, such as "the number of cases reported, the reporting channels and mechanisms used, the follow-up procedures and the harm prevented through whistleblowing."  

5. A European framework for whistleblower protection?: The whistleblower protection provisions of UNCAC and the Council of Europe Civil and Criminal Law Conventions on Corruption should be implemented. 

Links: 

Alternative to Silence: Whistleblower Protection in 10 European Countries

Each country's report

Bulgaria

Czech Republic: English - Czech

Estonia

Hungary

Ireland

Italy: English - Italian

Latvia

Lithuania

Romania

Slovakia: English - Slovakian

Draft Principles for Whistleblowing Legislation

TI's Whistleblower Protection Page

2009 National Business Ethics Survey from Ethics Resource Center

Ethics Resource Center has released “The 2009 National Business Ethics Survey (NBES),” which is the sixth in a series of reports that started in 1994 and have examined organizational ethics from the employee perspective.  The 2009 survey focuses on the unusual economic events of the past two years and their impact of ethics in the American workplace. Total 2,852 employees in the for-profit sector were participated in this survey by telephone interview. 

According to the report, most key measures improved.

-       Misconduct at work is down from 56% in 2007 to 49% in 2009. Fewer employees answered they had witnessed misconduct on the job.

-       Whistleblowing is up from 58% in 2007 to 63% in 2009. More employees replied they had reported misconduct when they observed it.

-       Ethical cultures are stronger. Based on ERC’s measures of the strength of ethical culture in the workplace, 9% increased from 2007. 

-       Overall, perceived pressure to commit an ethics violation declined from 10% in 2007 to 8% in 2009.

However, retaliation against those who reported misconduct increased. 15% of whistleblowers perceive they were retaliated against as a result.

49% of employees witnessed some type of misconduct occurring in the workplace, such as company resource abuse, abusive behavior, lying to employees, email or internet abuse, conflicts of interest, discrimination, etc.

Reporting Sources in 2009

4% Other

4% External source

15% Other responsible person

3% Hotline

75% Management

            46% Direct Supervisor

            29% Higher Management

Specific Forms of Retaliation Experienced as a Result of Reported Misconduct (2009)

60% Other employees gave you a cold shoulder

62% Your supervisor or management excluded you from decisions and work actively

55% You were verbally abused by your supervisor or someone else in management

48% You almost lost your job

42% You were verbally abused by other employees

43% You were not given promotions or raises

27% You were relocated or reassigned

20% Any other form of retaliation

18% You were demoted

4% You experienced physical harm to your person or property

You can download the survey report from the ERC website. 

 

Ethics Resource Center

2345 Crystal Drive, Suite 201

Arlington, VA 22202 USA

Telephone: 703.647.2185

FAX: 703.647.2180

Email: ethics@ethics.org

Visit Our Website: http://www.ethics.org

Join the POGO's Online Federal Service Contracts Survey

Project On Government Oversight (POGO), an independent watchdog nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., is conducting an online federal service contracts survey. If you are federal government or contractor employees, please join the survey. I am really looking forward to seeing the results of this survey. 

The following note is from POGO's website.

If any readers are looking for something to do over the Veterans Day holiday coming up, we'd like to point those who are federal government or contractor employees with experience in federal service contracts to POGO’s online federal service contracts survey.

In the month since we launched the survey, many people have graciously offered their time to sound off about the federal government’s policies and practices regarding its use of private sector contractors. Why not join in the fun?

Responses are due by November 30. We invite all of our readers to spread the word about the survey to friends that might be interested.

Need that survey link again? Here it is.

-- Neil Gordon

[Germany] Pricewaterhouse Coopers' "The Economic Crime Survey 2009"

By Guido Strack

Click here to read his original post in German.

PWC-Germany study emphasizes the importance of company whistleblower systems

PWC-Germany in collaboration with the University of Halle-Wittenberg has just presented: "The Economic Crime Survey 2009 - Security Situation in Germany's major corporations". For this representative study conducted in the spring of this year, standardized telephone interviews with 500 persons responsible for fighting and preventing crime within their companies. The results were compared with previous results from the years 2007 and 2005.

61 percent of companies said that they have in the past two years become the victims of economic crimes. On average, the company reported eight cases of damage and an average loss of 4.29 million € (compared to 1.59 million € in 2007). Broken down by types of damage that resulted (one should also keep in mind the unquantified non-included reputational damage) following frequencies and average amounts of loss the study shows:

     * Property crimes such as fraud and embezzlement: 41 percent, 1,697,784 Euro loss
     * Competition offenses (: 39 percent, 5,849,733 Euro loss
     * Corruption: 13 percent, 1,561,569 Euro loss
     * Balance Sheet Falsification: 4 percent, 670,000 Euro loss
     * Money laundering: 3 percent, 2,172,857 Euro loss

Regarding the questions on awareness and prevention, the study emphasizes again the importance of company whistleblower systems and internal whistleblowers.

According to the study 71% of cases had been discovered accidentally, mostly by internal (41% of all cases) and external (21% of all) whistleblowers, whereas systematic review by internal audit and targeted measures such as risk-management, enterprise security and job rotation together only led to a 16% share of detections. However, whistleblower systems are available only in 31% of all German companies, and therefore could only in prove their effectiveness in 3% of cases, whereas in German subsidiaries of American companies there are already 61% of the companies having such systems and consequently also a higher detection rate.There is also a close connection with the fact that the latter were victims of corruption at a rate of only 2%, while that ratio for the German companies showed remarkable 14%.

Compared to previous years but slight improvements in the prevention efforts were identified. Nevertheless, the overall proportion of company whistleblowers systems grew from 26% to 34%. Overall, the efforts of the German economy are still not sufficient, since many companies are reluctant to considerable financial investment. Relatively higher, is the proportion of firms with whistleblower systems only for the listed companies, with already 55% in their group.

Another interessting result are the areas of crime the existing whistleblower systems cover, namely:

     * 90% corruption
     * 85% of fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation
     * 85% misuse of customer and corporate data
     * 82% anti-competitive agreements and
     * 75% forbidden insider trading (with listed corps)

The study stresses that, besides the detection function whistleblower systems have a great impact on the subjective risk of detection estimation of potential offenders and thus a deterrent and preventive effect and that because of heir proven effectiveness a wider and increased usage and extension also to external whistleblowers would be desirable.

But for whistleblowers who may now think that company whistleblower systems give them a fair chance to achieve effective sanctions against perpetrators from the top executive levels the study also provides less encouraging numbers. When offenders belonged to top-management in 20% of cases no consequences were drawn (for all employees in only 6%) and also the figures on how often companies address public prosecutors are continuously decreasing in relation to who committed the crime, from ordinary workers (54%) via middle-management (49%) to top-management (33%).

Three Ethics Studies from PWC, ERC, and ACFE

Three current studies from PricewaterhouseCooper (PWC), Ethics Resource Center (ERC), and Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) have found that whistleblowers are significant resource to find and prevent fraud and misconduct.

Download PWC, 2007, "Economic Crime: People, culture and Control."

In the PWC Report,

"Effectively implemented whistle-blowing systems - and a corporate culture that supports them - have had a noticeable impact, detecting fraud in 8% of cases, almost three times the effect they had in 2005.  Moreover, if a whistle-blowing system was rated as 'effective' by the company surveyed, it almost doubled the rate of detection (to 14%)" (p. 10).

"In certain regions, such as North America, a whistle-blowing system is not statutory requirement of a listed company and has become a fixture of the company culture.  Indeed, our study shows that management, by propagating the right ethical tone within its business and trading practices, can make a substantial impact on levels of fraud detection, in some cases reducing the chance of the detection of fraud 'by accident' to as low as 20% of cases" (p. 10-11).

The Impact of whistle-blowing systems & Whistle-blowing programmes:best practice tips (p. 23). 

Download ACFE, 2008, "2008 Report To The Nation On Occupational Fraud & Abuse."

In the ACFE Report,

"In comparing detection methods based on the victim's organization type, we see that, with a few exceptions, the relative frequency of initial detection methods is generally consistent across the four categories of organizations.  In each category, tips were the most common detection method, generally followed by internal controls and internal audits" (p. 22).

"The fact that tips continue to be the most effective means of detecting fraud suggests that ogranizations could improve their detection efforts by establishing formal structures to receive reports about possible fraudulent conduct" (p. 23).

"By far, the greatest percentage of tips came from employees of the victim organization, which is consistent with our findings in 2006.  The fact that over half of all fraud detection tips came from employees suggests that organization should focus on employee education as a key component of their fraud detection strategies.  Employees should be trained to understand what constitutes fraud and how it harms the organization. They should be encouraged to report illegal or suspicious behavior, and they should be reassured that reports may be made confidentially and that the ogranization prohibits retaliation against whistleblwers" (p. 23).

Download Ethics Resource Center, 2007, "The_National_Government_Ethics_Survey." 

In the ERC Report,

"Whistleblower hotlines have received a great deal of legislative and regulatory attention, however, they are the reporting method of choice less than 1 percent of the time for observations of the following kinds of misconduct: Abusive or intimidating behavior; putting one's own interests ahead of the organization's; Alternation of documents,..." (p. 7).

"Many reporters are retaliated against.  More than one in six (17%) employees who reported the misconduct they observed experienced retaliation as a result" (p. 9).

"Only 8 percent of government workplaces have strong ethical cultures" (p. 12)

"Focus on Tone at the "Tops." A sizable percentage of government employees believe that their top management is weak on ethics.  However, when asked to identify the "top" of their organization, more government employees chose the leader of their particular work locations than the senior-most leader of their organization as a whole.  This means that there are many "tops" to government organizations, and all leaders need to be trained and encouraged to create strong ethical cultures.  In particular, employees need to be convinced that their management doesn't just "talk the talk": the commitments leaders make - especially when they talk about the importance of ethics and support for whistleblowers - need to be followed with action" (p. 39).

EGPA Conference 2009 - Ethics and Integrity of Governance

EGPA Conference 2009

Malta, September 2-5, 2009

The Study Group on Ethics and Integrity of Governance brings together academics and practitioners interested in the ethical dimension of administration and organization. The group’s mission is to establish a long-term network aimed at stimulating research on public sector integrity and ethics in Europe. The Study Group was launched at the 2003 EGPA Annual Conference and had an average attendance of about 40 participants in the subsequent annual meetings.  Click here for more information.

Session 1 - General track: ETHICS AND INTEGRITY OF GOVERNANCE

Session 2 - Themed session on Academic Research and Ethics

The due date of paper submission was May 1, 2009.

Download EGPA 2009 - Programme final

The protection of whistleblowers in the light of GRECO's Work

This paper generally addresses a comparative perspective on whistleblower protection laws.  The author compared countries that were required and not required to introduce whistleblower protection.  Also he slightly touched 10 issues for policy makers, such as "is a specific law needed?," "whistleblower protection should ideally apply both to the public and private sector," and "compensation."

Author: Christopher Speckbacher, Secretariat of GRECO

Table of Contents

    Part1: General consideration

    Part2: Ten Issues for Policy Makers

Download The Protection of Whistleblowers in the Light of GRECO's Work, March 2009

GRECO's website (Group of States against Corruption)

USA: GAO Reports from Jan. to Jun. 2009

U.S. Government Accountability Office

"The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is known as "the investigative arm of Congress" and "the congressional watchdog." GAO supports the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and helps improve the performance and accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people."  (from its website)

Reports on Whistleblower Protection Issues (from January to June 2009)

Recovery Act: GAO's Efforts to Work with the Accountability Community to Help Ensure Effective and Efficient Oversight

GAO-09-672T, May 5, 2009

Quick View     Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 25 pages)   Accessible Text

Whistleblower Protection Program: Better Data and Improved Oversight Would Help Ensure Program Quality and Consistency

GAO-09-106, January 27, 2009

Quick View     Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 78 pages)   Accessible Text   Recommendations (HTML)

What's wrong with the Senate bill? by Steve Kohn - National Whistleblower Center (USA)

Stephen Kohn, Director of National Whistleblower Center, has criticized the Senate Bill of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009.  He has made three points out of twelve why the Senate Bill is wrong.  Here are his three points

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On July 29, 2009 the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs unanimously reported out of committee S. 372, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009.  Unfortunately, this bill contains many significant differences from the House Bill (H.R. 1507), which the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) fully supports. 

I. THE DEFINITION OF PROTECTED ACTIVITY: SMALL LOOPHOLE OR LARGE NOOSE?

II. ADVERSE ACTIONS REVISTED

III. HOW THE NEW “270 DAY RULE” BLOCKS COURT ACCESS FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

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Click here to visit National Whistleblower Center's blog to read more.

National Whistleblower Center Web Site

Whistleblowing News from Germany by Guido Strack

Whistle blowing News from Germany written by Guido Strack

Guido Strack, who is managing a German whistleblower's blog - Whistleblower Netzwek E.V., sent news about whistleblower protection legislation in Germany and two whistleblowing cases in Austria and Germany.

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The most recent notable event in Germany was the entry into force of a special whistleblowing clause for employees of the federal inteligent services.

The whistleblower clause for members of the federal intelligent services can be found in § 8 PKontrG i.e. the law on parliamentary control of the federal intelligent services. Since 4.8.2009 members of these services are allowed to inform the parliamentary control group (a small group of a few Bundestag MPs controlling the federal intelligent services and themselves bound to very strict secrecy obligations) about job related affairs provided that its not in their own interest or in the interests of fellow members and provided they in parallel inform the heads of their services. (http://www.whistleblower-net.de/blog/?p=726)

There are prominent whistleblower stories currently in Austria, where someone anonymously gave documents from the procecutors office to the press (http://www.whistleblower-net.de/blog/?p=737) and in Germany about tax inspectors who were too active against tax-evasion supported by banks and were sent to invalidity with wrong medical certificates stating that they are paranoid (http://www.whistleblower-net.de/content/view/149/82/lang,de/).

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I found an article written by Mr. Strack, "Whistleblowing in Germany".  This article examines current whistleblowing cases, legal situation and poor organizational support in Germany. 

Click here to download the article.

Whistleblower-Netzwork E.V.