This input was provided by Sorainen, a trusted Bird & Bird Plus law firm with offices in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus.
The Directive was implemented into national law in February 2022 via changes to the Law on Protection of Whistleblowers of the Republic of Lithuania (the Law) and changes to the Resolution of the Government No 1133 of On the Implementation of the Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers (the Resolution).
Legislation passed/ Directive implemented.
In addition to the cases covered by the Directive, information on infringements may be provided with regards to:
Basically the same as those in the Directive.
Investigation should be performed by a competent body. The competent body shall be appointed by the head of the entity. The competent body should be person(s) whose reputation and qualifications do not raise doubts about his/her ability to properly implement the duties of the competent body.
Generally entities with fewer than 50 employees are not required to establish an internal whistleblowing channel.
However, the requirement for at least 50 employees does not apply and all entities must form the internal whistleblowing channel if they operate in the field of financial services and capital markets, banking, credit, investment, insurance and re-insurance, occupational or personal pensions products, securities, investment funds, payment services, activities related to the prevention of money laundering and terrorism, transport safety, protection of the environment.
Yes.
Personal information of the reporting person is required to be disclosed to the competent body when providing information. However, anonymous reporting is allowed.
The laws do not provide an option to disregard reports solely on the ground that they are made anonymously. In our view, anonymous reports should also be investigated to the extent that it is possible.
The Law provides for the following measures:
Group-wide reporting channels are not expressly permitted. However, based on the complex analysis of laws it can be interpreted that it is allowed. In any case group-wide reporting channels shall comply with local rules regulating whistle-blowers’ protection.
Under the Resolution units of a legal entity with 250 or more employees each must have a separate internal channel and cannot share it with other departments of the legal entity.