Law 2/2023, on whistleblower protection. Applicable problems from a labor perspective

Abstract

Law 2/2023, of February 20, has as its main purpose to promote the culture of information and protect people who report the commission of infractions or crimes. The Act has a major impact on the framework of labour relations. On the one hand, because it imposes on companies the obligation, hitherto non-existent, to implement an internal Whistleblower channel so that, among other people, their own workers can report crimes or infractions that they know about their work. On the other hand, because it incorporates a battery of measures aimed at protecting these reporting or reporting workers against possible reprisals. The analysis of the Law from this labor perspective reveals the existence of numerous questions and interpretative doubts. These pages address some of these issues (protected subjects, legal classification of acts of retaliation, duration of protection of the informant, delimitation of the companies obliged to have an internal whistleblowing channel, possibility or not of sharing a single channel between the companies of a group of companies, legal regime of the person responsible of the channel...), offering guidelines for its resolution.