Whistleblower protection law – new duties for employers in Czechia

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Whistleblower protection law – new duties for employers in Czechia – SME Info Czechia 2023-4

The whistleblower must not face any consequences from the organization whose practices they reported. As these misconducts can endanger the public, it is in the public interest to protect the whistleblower. Such consequences may be (but are not limited to) termination of employment, termination of other non-employment agreements, decrease in salary or personal evaluation, discrimination, transfer to another position, etc. The protection extends not only to the whistleblower but also to the intermediaries, colleagues, or relatives who could face consequences in their jobs.

Additional duties for employers with more than 50 employees

Included in this limit are full-time and part-time employees, persons working on a non-employment agreement, and employees assigned by employment agencies (these assigned employees count for the employment agencies as well). The figure is always determined on the 1st of January in the respective calendar year.

These employers are obliged to create an internal whistleblowing system which, among others, has the following functionalities

allows submission of both written and verbal reports (and per whistleblower request also allows reports in person)
secures monitoring of the report from submission to resolution

Employers with 50 to 249 employees can share this internal system with other employers and are allowed to use paid services for this system (offered by e.g., law companies).

Employers with 250 and more employees need to have their own internal system.

The employer also needs a designated person who will receive the whistleblowing reports, will protect the whistleblower’s identity and will protect the whistleblower from retaliation from the employer.

The whistleblower needs to be informed that their report was received (within 7 days) and that it was resolved (within 30 days, or 60 days in complicated cases).

The employer needs to have electronic records of the received reports, going back 5 years, where these records can be accessed only by the designated person to protect the identities of the whistleblowers.

Employers also need to update their websites with information regarding whistleblowing per the new law.

As the implementation of the EU regulation is overdue, and the Czech Republic is already facing fines for the late implementation, the effectiveness of the law will be from 1st August 2023 for companies with 250 and more employees and from 15th December 2023 for the remaining companies, giving the employers only short window to create and implement the new systems.

Supervision

The fulfillment of the new law will be supervised by the Department of Justice. This department can issue fines to the employer for subjecting the whistleblower to retaliation, not implementing the internal whistleblowing system, et cetera. The whistleblower who knowingly filed a false report can also be fined.

The Department of Justice can also receive whistleblowing reports from employees employed by companies with less than 50 employees and from employees who wish to make reports outside their company. These whistleblowing reports can be submitted via the online interface at https://oznamovatel.justice.cz.

Download here the English+Czech bilingual pdf of this newsletter:
Whistleblower protection law – new duties for employers in Czechia – SME Info CZ 2023-4

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The purpose of SME INFO is to provide general information and to draw the attention to the current changes in law which we believe to be important for the business operation of our clients. It is not a replacement for careful review of the acts and rules and the consultation with your tax advisor. © Copyrights 2023, Process Solutions, – All rights reserved

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