Whistleblowing Management System

 
 

– Helge Kvamme is the Norwegian delegate in the ICC Global Commission on Anti-corruption and Corporate Responsibility

 

Kvamme Associates can assist both private and public organisations in setting up an effective and professional Whistleblowing Management System (WMS) that is compliant with Norwegian law as well as international standards..

As a Norwegian delegate to the ICC Global Commission on Anti-corruption and Corporate Responsibility, we have been contributing to the newly launched ICC 2022 Guidelines on Whistleblowing and are using these very up to date recommendations to assist our clients.

The 2022 edition aligns with key international legal instruments as well as global standards and best practice such as the 2019 European Directive on Whistleblower Protection and the 2021 ISO 37002 Guidelines on Whistleblowing Management Systems.

Viviane Schiavi, ICC Global Policy Lead – Anti-corruption and Corporate Responsibility, emphasised while launching the new guidelines, that «a well-functioning and trusted Whistleblowing Management System supports enterprise objectives for sound risk management, internal control and effective compliance, and promotes a culture of transparency and accountability. It enables reporting through organised communication channels set out by the enterprise to ensure that concerns of wrongdoing swiftly reach those that are most able to investigate the matter and are empowered to remedy it».

We can assist in:

  • Process design

  • Confidential reporting setup – customized internal reporting and platform to cover third party reporting rights

  • Data integration and investigation software

  • Identity protection

  • Respect of governance principles

  • Data security

  • Case and triage management

  • Investigations – our confidential reporting network allows us to cover all EU Member States

  • Management of the Whistleblowing process

 
 
 
 


OECD 2021 Anti-Bribery Recommendation

On 26 November 2021, on the proposal of the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, the OECD Council adopted the 2021 Recommendation for Further Combating Bribery of Public Officials in International Business Transactions (2021 Anti-Bribery Recommendation). The 2021 Anti-Bribery Recommendation updates and expands upon the 2009 Anti-Bribery Recommendation, with new recommendations for countries to prevent, detect and investigate foreign bribery cases.

Regarding protection of reporting persons, the new recommendation include the need for extensive provisions to ensure comprehensive and effective protection of whistleblowers in the public and private sectors.

It recommends; in view of the essential role that reporting persons can play as a source of detection of foreign bribery cases, that member countries establish, in accordance with their jurisdictional and other basic legal principles, strong and effective legal and institutional frameworks to protect and/or to provide remedy against any retaliatory action to persons who report on reasonable grounds suspected acts of bribery.

US Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

The 2020 updated compliance related documents from US DOJ and SEC primarily meant for the fight against international corruption and foreign bribery, are useful sources when discussing benefits of whistleblowing requirements and system developments.

These are The Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - Second Edition, and the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (Updated June 2020).

The Resource Guide states that the truest measure of an effective compliance program is how it responds to misconduct. Accordingly, for a compliance program to be effective, it should have a well-functioning and appropriately funded mechanism for the timely reporting and thorough investigations of any allegations or suspicions of misconduct by a company, its employees, or agents.

In addition to having a mechanism for responding to the specific incident of misconduct, the company’s program should also integrate lessons learned from any misconduct into the company’s policies, training, and controls. To do so, a company will need to analyze the root causes of the misconduct to timely and appropriately remediate those causes to prevent future compliance breaches.

According to the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs document, a hallmark of a well-designed compliance program is the existence of an efficient and trusted mechanism by which employees can anonymously or confidentially report allegations of a breach of the company’s code of conduct, company policies, or suspected or actual misconduct.