Whistleblower hotline

Make your corporate culture transparent and detect fraud

The business challenge

The EU Whistleblowing Directive (2019/1937) on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law had already entered into force in 2019, bringing significant changes to many organizations.

The aim of the Directive is to offer whistleblowers the opportunity to provide information and reports in a confidential environment, while at the same time offering them better protection against repression. Besides regulatory obligation, whistleblower channels are important components of compliance management systems. They help legal entities in the private and public sectors to ensure that legal requirements are complied with and that measures are taken to prevent legal violations. The internal reporting channel furthers a trust based corporate culture, with the aim of initiating a continuous improvement process and thus making the department or company fit for the future. Early detection of legal violations can lead to the reduction in liability risks and thus reduce monetary and reputational damage.

How we can help

We will help you set up and operate your in-house whistleblowing hotline and provide you with cost-effective digitised solutions to support you every step of the way. We provide the following services in connection with the whistleblowing hotline:

Implementation

Implementation of the whistleblowing hotline takes about 2 to 8 weeks and includes defining the specifications, configurations, technical training to key users, configuration validation and testing.

Prepare & launch awareness campaign

Training is an important element of compliance programmes; a whistleblower hotline cannot be operated without the trust, without constant communication between compliance and employees. We can support building that trust and raising awareness online or in the form of in-person trainings.

Developing the related processes and policies

We will develop the related processes and policies to ensure compliance with the Directive and to address issues such as anonymity, feedback to the whistleblower, and the handling of unfounded cases. Design of new procedures, processes and functional workflow, recommendations for enhancing existing procedures and processes, legal review of the internal guidelines and relevant corporate documents.

Assistance in the daily operation of the whistleblowing system

Should any legal, privacy or practical issues arise during the operation of the whistleblowing hotline, we are available to help you address them. In the case of a specific whistleblower allegation, we support our clients in planning and conducting investigations to ensure that they are conducted and documented in accordance with the applicable regulations, and in a cost-effective way.

Benefits

The introduction of an ethical hotline is not only a legal requirement, but also has a number of other benefits: the most important thing is to shorten the time it takes to detect an abuse, as this channel is still the most effective tool for this purpose. If PwC supports the introduction of an ethical hotline at your company, this may have the following advantages, among others:

Low implementation effort

Standardised, digitised and continuously updated solution with low implementation costs.

Expert knowledge

Trustworthy cooperation with PwC's dedicated experts, who are also familiar with the legal aspects and requirements from other laws and their internal regulations (e.g. guidelines or codes).

Global network

Thanks to our global network, cross-border reports can also be processed appropriately.

One-stop shop

All services from a single source.

ISO 27001 compliance

Ensuring compliance while taking into account requirements such as documentation, confidentiality and protection obligations (ISO 27001 certification for the whistleblowing tool).

Trusted, secure communication

With our whistleblowing tool you can directly communicate with the whistleblower in a secured way, in compliance with the Directive, you are able to provide feedbacks to the whistleblower.

Make Your corporate culture transparent and detect fraud with our whistleblowing platform.

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