Conscientious employees voluntarily informing law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies about violations by their employers are one of the most powerful aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. However, European laws do not provide the same level protection for whistleblowers.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and a number of other similar laws outline various ways of protecting workers who inform on their bosses. However, cultural differences can make those schemes unworkable in Europe. At least, this is the conclusion reached by the authors of the report EU Article 29 Working Party on Data Protection (PDF, 101 KB).
The rules on data protection adopted by the European Union state that both the person accused of misconduct and the whistleblower must be protected, but anonymity is frowned upon. In the EU it is considered lawful to limit the rights of whistleblowers to a few categories of people who can inform state agencies about violations by their employers.
In all those cases the protection mechanism must comply with the national laws of the EU country where the case is being heard. Furthermore, all the information gathered during the investigation can only be used outside that country in exceptional circumstances.
Therefore, it is safe to say that an effective protection policy for whistleblowers at the current time exists only in the U.S., within the framework of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. European legislation still leaves a lot to be desired.
“The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is certainly the benchmark in many areas of the war on corporate fraud, and protection of whistleblowers is no exception. I think that the European Union and numerous other countries will gradually bring their legislation into line with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, if for no other reason than the fact that the law has already proved its effectiveness time and again, exposing hundreds and even thousands of cases of financial fraud every year," says Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
Source: The European Union Online
