10.03.2023

CONDITIONS FOR PROTECTION WHEN REPORTING FINANCIAL ABUSE

According to the newly adopted Law on the Protection of Persons Reporting or Publicly Disclosing Information on Violations, employers in the public sector with the exception of municipalities, employers in the private sector with 50 or more workers or employees, etc. are obliged to build whistle-blowing systems for disclosing information on violations of Bulgarian legislation or acts of the European Union that endanger or damage the public interest and the law of the European Union.

In what order and who has the right to file these reports?

Protection under this law is provided to a whistleblower from the moment the report is filed or information about a violation is made public.

A reporting person within the meaning of this law is a natural person who files a report or publicly discloses information about a violation that has become known to him in his capacity as:

- worker, employee, civil servant or other person who performs wage labor, regardless of the nature of the work, the method of payment and the source of financing;

- a person who works without an employment relationship and/or exercises a free profession and/or craft activity;

- volunteer or intern;

- partner, shareholder, sole owner of the capital, member of the management or control body of a commercial company, member of the audit committee of an enterprise;

- a person who works for a natural or legal person, its subcontractors or suppliers;

- a job candidate who participated in a competition or other form of selection for employment and in this capacity received information about a violation;

- a worker or an employee, when the information was obtained within the framework of an employment or service relationship, which was terminated at the time of the submission of the report or of the public announcement;

- any other whistleblower who reports a violation that became known to him in a work context;

- persons who assist the whistleblower in the whistleblowing process, persons who are related to the whistleblower and who may be subject to retaliatory actions due to the whistleblower, and legal entities in which the whistleblower owns an interest, for which he works or with whom it is otherwise associated in a work context.

It is important to clarify that individuals who anonymously reported unlawfully or publicly but anonymously disclosed information about violations and were subsequently identified and subjected to repressive retaliation also have the right to protection in the cases defined by law.

A whistleblower is entitled to a remedy provided he had reasonable cause to believe that the whistleblower's information was correct at the time of the whistleblower's report. In the presence of these conditions, the person who reports a violation to institutions, bodies, services or agencies of the European Union also has the right to protection.

Employers should designate one or more employees who are responsible for handling reports. Employees responsible for handling reports may be the officials in the structure charged with the processing and protection of personal data. These employees may also perform other activities assigned by the employer, in case their reconciliation does not lead to a conflict of interest.

The report is submitted to the employee in charge of handling reports, in writing, including by e-mail, or orally. Verbal reporting can be done by telephone, other voice communication systems, and at the request of the reporting person - through a personal meeting in a suitable time agreed between the parties.

 

Reference:

Law on the Protection of Persons Reporting or Publicly Disclosing Information on Violations