German Whistleblower Protection Act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz –  HinSchG)

A report to the internal reporting office helps expose wrongdoing. The goal of the German Whistleblower Protection Act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz – HinSchG) is to protect whistleblowers from discrimination, to give them legal security and to protect their identity.

Violations that represent a significant risk to the company, its employees and other individuals, and which must be reported, include, in particular:

Breaches of anti-corruption, anti-cartel, and anti-money-laundering laws

Theft, breaches of trust and illicit enrichment with a significant scope or value (exceeding EUR 100,000)

Serious physical or psychological abuse

Cases of sexual harassment, discrimination, or racism

Criminal violations of data protection law

Violations of reporting and accounting law with serious consequences that are externally recognisable

Serious violations relating to technical specifications and/or technical safety

Abuses of human rights (e.g. violations of the principles of the UN Global Compact)

Violations of environmental regulations and/or noncompliance with product-specific environmental requirements

Violations of export controls or sanctions

Serious violations of the integrity of the whistleblower system, e.g. serious violations of the anonymity of the whistleblower, serious violations of reporting requirements

Other significant risks, e.g. breaches of regulations resulting in significant loss (exceeding EUR 100,000) to the company

Breaches of regulations that are likely to seriously damage the company’s reputation

Your report will be handled confidentially. The information you report can result in an internal investigation. Depending on the applicable laws, we may be required to share your identity with the authorities. That includes requests from law enforcement or the judicial authorities relating to criminal cases, or orders relating to administrative procedures that result from a report, including official sanction proceedings and judicial rulings.

If you make an anonymous report without submitting any contact details, then we have no way of contacting you with questions during the process that follows and, where applicable, of informing you about the results of our investigation.

Please note that documentation relating to your report is generally destroyed three years after the process is completed. After that time, documents relating to the process will no longer be available to you as evidence.

Please note that the protections of the German Whistleblower Protection Act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz – HinSchG), for example against reprisals due to a report, only apply if, at the time of the report, you had sufficient grounds to assume that the reported information was true. Intentionally providing false information may also result in prosecution. You must, therefore, have actual grounds for suspecting a violation, for example because you detected the violation yourself or gathered reliable information. Pure speculation is not covered by the German Whistleblower Protection Act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz – HinSchG). That is why, where possible, you should provide details of all the available evidence (e.g. witnesses, certificates, other documents, image files etc.).

Insofar as such evidence is available to you in electronic form, you may upload it at the time of your report.