Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen's revelations are a global event.

The whistleblower's statements about grievances and unethical behavior at the American tech company are available to everyone on television and via livestream.

The same applies to the "Pandora Papers", a huge data leak that exposes the business of politicians and economic elites in tax havens.

Investigative journalists have been providing the public with more and more information since Sunday - which would not have existed without a whistleblower.

Marcus Jung

Editor in business.

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The reality for whistleblowers is rarely this glamorous.

They have the image of the troublemaker and puncher.

If an employee reveals grievances or criminal offenses in their own company to authorities or the public, they cannot automatically expect praise and recognition.

Because of the betrayal of trade secrets, some whistleblowers face dismissal, claims for damages or even criminal proceedings.

In many EU member states, the protection of whistleblowers is not regulated by law, in Germany a law failed this summer.

Report in every third company

The Whisteblowing Report 2021 presented on Wednesday in Munich shows what mammoth task awaits legislators and companies. A representative survey by the University of Applied Sciences Graubünden among more than 1200 companies from Germany, France, Great Britain and Switzerland reveals the great uncertainty in the economy.

The FAZ has received the “Whistleblowing Report” in advance.

Every third company reported illegal or unethical behavior in the past year, i.e. a violation of its own internal rules of conduct, its own “Code of Conduct”.

In Germany, 63.2 percent of the companies surveyed have set up a reporting office.

This puts you behind Great Britain, where this is the case in three quarters of all companies. 

The trend shows that large corporations and international companies are more frequently affected by grievances.

According to the report, this is much less the case with Swiss corporations.

But if there is a violation or a criminal offense, the financial damage is significantly higher than in other countries.

Great effort for 50,000 companies

Unlike the previous studies, the researchers also included the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and focused on the effects of the EU whistleblowing directive.

Because for 50,000 companies in the EU, 17,000 of them in Germany alone, internal reporting offices will soon become a necessity.

Achim Weick, founder and EQS boss, pointed this out in his opening speech at the European Congress for Compliance and Ethics (ECEC), during which the report was presented.

The information service provider from Munich offers companies capital market and investor information and also supports companies in the implementation of internal whistleblowing systems.