Whistleblowing is a process through which an employee or collaborator or any person external to the company spontaneously reports illegal, immoral or incorrect activities that he or she has witnessed within the organization.

In English, the word whistleblower indicates ‘”a person who, working within an organization, a public or private company, finds himself witnessing irregular, illegal behavior, potentially harmful to the community and decides to report it within the company itself or to the judicial authorities or to the attention of the media, in order to put an end to that behavior”.

Source: Accademia della Crusca

It is the figure, internal or external to the company, who carries out the task of managing the corporate whistleblowing system. He plays a fundamental role because he is the one who supervises the reporting channel, carries out the preliminary analysis of the reports, interacts with the whistleblower to obtain any further information, monitors compliance with the prohibition of repercussions against the whistleblower and transmits the reports to the Supervisory Body, the Legal Office and the Compliance Officer.

The protective measures apply:

• to the reporters; to the facilitators;
• to persons who perform the same job as the whistleblower and who are related to the latter by kinship or affinity up to the fourth degree;
• to colleagues who perform the same job as the whistleblower and with whom the whistleblower has regular and ongoing contact;
• to the entities for which the whistleblowers work (e.g. suppliers) and to entities operating in the same field of work as the whistleblowers.

The whistleblower who makes his identity known or whose identity is subsequently ascertained and who is not subject to any of the causes for exclusion referred to in art. 7 enjoys the following protection measures:

• obligation to maintain confidentiality of the whistleblower’s identity;
• protection against retaliation;
• prohibition of discriminatory measures;
• the report justifies the violation of the obligation of confidentiality pursuant to art. 3 of Law No. 179/2017;
• non-punishability in relation to possible violations of confidentiality, copyright
  and data protection pursuant to art. 20 of the Legislative Decree. n. 24 of 10 March 2023.

The reasons that prompted the whistleblower to make a report are irrelevant to his or her protection.

Whistleblowers who become aware of unlawful acts during the course of their employment and subsequently report or denounce them shall not suffer any of the following retaliation:

• dismissal, suspension or equivalent measures;
• relegation or failure to promote;
• change of job description, change of workplace, reduction in salary, change in working hours;
• suspension of training or any restriction on access to training;
• negative performance evaluation or provision of negative references;
• adoption of disciplinary measures or other sanctions, including pecuniary ones;
• coercion, intimidation, harassment/bullying, or ostracism;
• discrimination or other unfavorable treatment;
• failure to convert a fixed-term employment contract into a permanent employment contract, where the employee had a reasonable expectation of such conversion;
• failure to renew or early termination of a fixed-term employment contract;
• damage, including damage to reputation, particularly on social media, or economic or financial losses;
• the inclusion of the whistleblower in unauthorised lists based on a formal or informal sectoral or industry agreement, which may result in the whistleblower no longer being employed in the sector or industry in question;
• the early termination or cancellation of a contract for goods and services;
• the revocation of a license or permit;
• the request to undergo a psychiatric or medical assessment.