Whistleblower Channel
© uliP photography
1) Why is a whistleblower channel needed?
Following the transposition of the European Whistleblower Protection Directive into national law, companies with at least 50 employees must implement a whistleblowing procedure.
As this obligation also affects EXPERIMINTA gGmbH, the form below gives you the opportunity to report any breaches of the law within our organisation via our whistleblower channel.
This enables us to identify potential misconduct by individuals at an early stage and take appropriate action. By doing so, you will be making a significant contribution to improving our corporate culture, helping us to create a safe working environment, and protecting our organisation from potential harm.
2) What is a whistleblower and who can submit a report via the whistleblower channel?
A whistleblower is someone who recognises malpractice and/or breaches of the law within a company and reports them to the relevant department within the company.
The provisions of the Whistleblower Protection Act (HinSchG) restrict the definition of a potential whistleblower to those in a professional context. Therefore, whistleblowers can only report offences relating to persons or institutions with whom they have professional contact. This includes not only current employment relationships, but also past or prospective ones.
This includes, in particular:
- employees, including former employees.
- Volunteer employees
- Job applicants
- Interns
- Freelancers
- Service providers and their employees;
- Shareholders and individuals belonging to a company’s administrative, management or supervisory body
- Third parties who are in contact with whistleblowers and could suffer professional reprisals (e.g. colleagues) are also included.
3) What can be reported through the whistleblowing channel?
For such a notification to be possible, the offence must fall within the material scope of this law. This would be the case if it is a violation of the following national and EU regulations:
- Infringements that are punishable by law (includes any criminal provision under German law)
- Violations that are subject to fines if the violated provision serves to protect life, limb or health or to protect the rights of employees or their representative bodies
- Other violations of federal and state legislation
- Violations of legal norms that were adopted to implement European regulations. The legislator has defined a specific catalogue for this purpose, which covers the following areas of application:
- Public procurement
- Financial services, financial products and financial markets and
- Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing
- Product safety and compliance
- Road safety protection
- Environmental protection
- Food safety
- Consumer protection
- Protection of privacy and personal data
- Security of network and information services
4) How can I submit a notification?
If you wish to submit a whistleblower report via our whistleblower channel, please bear the following in mind.
All incoming reports are received and processed by Leu Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH, which is based in Frankfurt am Main. They have been appointed by the management and are responsible for providing independent whistleblower protection.
Whistleblower reports can be submitted via several channels. As well as electronic reporting via the whistleblower form or by email, reports can also be submitted in writing or verbally. You can contact our external whistleblower protection officer by post, telephone or in person.
5) How is the information message protected?
All incoming whistleblowing reports will be treated confidentially and protected accordingly, regardless of the reporting channel used.
This means that your identity will only be known to the Whistleblower Protection Officer and will not be published without your explicit consent. Additionally, only a restricted group of people who are also subject to a confidentiality obligation will have access to the contents of your report.
You need not fear any labour law consequences or further reprisals. Such actions would be inadmissible under the Whistleblower Protection Act, provided that the requirements for whistleblower protection are met.
To ensure your report is handled confidentially and the integrity of the reported facts is maintained, please use the specified reporting channel to submit a whistleblowing report. Our organisation has set up an internal whistleblowing channel, which can be accessed via the link below. This enables us to ensure that reports are always treated confidentially and that only authorised persons have access to your report.
6) What are the requirements for whistleblower protection?
In order for you, as a whistleblower, to benefit from protection rights, three requirements must be met in total.
- The information must be truthful.
You must have had sufficient grounds to believe that the information provided at the time of reporting the violation of the law was true.
- The material scope of application must be open.
The reported violation must relate to an act or omission covered by the material scope of application.
- Use of the authorised reporting channel:
The internal or external whistleblowing channel was used to submit the report. The external reporting channel is a whistleblowing channel controlled and managed by an authority.
In general, companies are not obliged to follow up on whistleblowing reports that do not fall under the material scope of application.
7) What may not be reported via the whistleblower channel?
The whistleblower channel is reserved exclusively for reporting violations of national or EU regulations within EXPERIMINTA gGmbH.
It is not intended for reports that do not fall within the scope of the Whistleblower Protection Act, such as general suggestions for improvement, personal concerns, or general complaints unrelated to a violation of the law or any other legal irregularity. In such cases, the channels and platforms provided for this purpose should be used instead.
8) How are deliberately false, abusive or grossly negligent information reports dealt with?
Please note that submitting a report based on false information that was made intentionally or through gross negligence may result in the whistleblower losing their right to protection and being subject to sanctions and claims for damages.
This does not apply to reports where, at the time of submission, you genuinely believed the information to be true.
We would like to emphasize that when processing whistleblower reports, the presumption of innocence applies to the person reported or the allegation made.
