Czech Republic

The Czech draft law has full extent of the personal scope. It includes employees, shareholders and management, contractors, but also stagiers, voluntary workers, or e.g. legal representatives. The draft covers also applicants for job.

Anonymous reports can be filed according to Czech draft law based on the reasoning of the proposed regulation but the procedures established by the draft law will not be applied to the handling of anonymous reports (especially regarding the assessment of their reasonableness, the obligation to instruct, proposing corrective measures, etc.) until the identity of the informant is revealed. Note: § 2 of the draft reads “report includes name, surname and date of birth or other information through which identity of reporting person can be established”.According to the draft law, the whistleblower who filed the report anonymously is entitled to protection under the draft law and special legal regulations only if his/her identity is subsequently revealed. From this date, the standard procedures apply.

Internal reporting is described in § 8 of the draft. The scope of the bodies obliged to establish internal channel follows the European Directive. There is no encouragement to use preferably internal reporting channel.

Yes. The Czech draft act in § 8 requires companies having 50 and more employees to establish the internal channel. Also companies with less then 50 employees when operating on capital or financial markets, providing loans and other financial services or engaged in insurance including pension insurance are obliged to establish an internal channel.

Yes. Public bodies including municipalities due to establish the internal channel are defined through the Czech Public Procurement Act. Exemptions are granted to municipalities with less then 10 000 inhabitants and public non-commercial institutions with less then 50 employees.

Companies up to 249 employees and all municipalities can share the internal channel.

N/A

In Czech draft Act the report can be made on suspected breach of the law. Minor offenses are not covered in the Act. The right of the “appointed person/employee” in the ministry to close the case is described as follows: According to § 17 point b) and c) of the draft the public authority , the appointed person/employee: b) shall notify the notifier in writing without undue delay that it is not a notification under this Act, or c) without undue delay, informs the informant in writing that, based on the facts stated in the report and from the circumstances known to him, he did not find suspicion of committing an illegal act, or found that the report is based on false information, and instructs the informant about the right to submit notification to a public authority; the provisions of § 16, paragraph 2 shall be applied mutatis mutandis. The similar wording can be found also regarding the right of the appointed person/employee at the due institution: If the notification is not evaluated as justified, the competent person shall notify the whistleblower in writing without undue delay that, based on the facts stated in the notification and from the circumstances known to him, he/she did not find suspicion of the commission of an illegal act, or found that the notification is based on false information, and instructs the whistleblower on the right to file a report with the public authority.

According to § 17 (2) If the repeated notification does not contain new facts, the appointed person/employee does not deal with it further. The appointed person/employee will notify the whistleblower in writing about this procedure without undue delay.

No. In all cases the “appointed person” should act without unnecessary delay.

No. There is no such provision in the Czech draft Act.

Retaliation against reporting person and other contribution persons is defined in § 4 and such acts are prohibited. If retaliation occurs the reporting person has a right for appropriate financial remedy according § 5.,

Penalties are defined in accordance with the Directive. E.g. Penalty for due institution which commits retaliation is up to 1M CZK, app. 40.000 €. The penalty for appointed person e.g. for Disclosing the identity of the reporting person is up to 100.000 CZK, app. 4.000 €.

In § 23 the penalty for intentional false reporting is set up to 50.000 CZK (approx. 2.000 €).

There are no such further rights.