Search for:
Author

Dr. Philipp Maier

Browsing
Philipp Maier is partner and head of the Baker McKenzie Employment Law Practice Group in Vienna. He joined Baker McKenzie Austria in 2009 as associate of the employment law practice group. Prior to that Philipp worked for several years in the employment law department of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and in the litigation department of Wolf Theiss Rechtsanwälte. He also completed an internship at Aichelin Heat Treatment Systems (Detroit, USA).

“All information about employees!” In practice, this is what works councils often request from employers. Works councils have a legitimate interest in being involved in HR developments. However, personal employee data is usually a taboo for the works council. Sharing more information than necessary with the works council may result in severe consequences for companies.

Most European countries have already implemented the EU Whistleblower Directive into national laws. Now, companies across Europe are challenged to implement a whistleblowing system in their subsidiaries, that fully complies with the new national whistleblowing laws. Failure to do so may have highly negative implications for companies, their directors and their employees.

On 20 July 2023, the Austrian National Council passed a significant increase in penalties for the violation of business and trade secrets. This was necessary due to a significant increase in secrecy violations.
Business and trade secrets are information of high commercial value. Therefore, business and trade secrets are usually protected by comprehensive confidentiality agreements.

On 1 February 2023, the Austrian National Council passed the so-called Whistleblower Protection Act (HinweisgeberInnenschutzgesetz). This law regulates a set of obligations for companies in relation to whistleblowing, with the setup of an internal “whistle-blowing system” a priority. This new law will come into force shortly — following a formal confirmation by the Federal Council of Austria, which is still pending. The Austrian legislator is finally implementing the requirements of the EU Whistleblower Directive, although with a delay of more than a year.

Does your company not want to default on the implementation of the EU Whistleblowing Directive? Then do not wait any longer to start planning your organization’s whistleblowing regime. We have prepared a multijurisdictional analysis matrix covering five key areas with respect to whistleblowing laws in the form of a questionnaire. The questionnaire covers questions about the directive’s scope and implementation requirements for internal procedures, protection of whistleblowers and data privacy issues.

Against the background of the EU Posting Workers Directive and the ECJ case law, the Wage and Social Dumping Prevention Act (“Lohn- und Sozialdumping-Bekämpfungsgesetz”, “LSD-BG”) has been amended effective as of 1 September 2021. In summary, the scope of the Wage and Social Dumping Prevention Act was limited and the provisions regarding administrative penalties were mitigated. However, provisions for long-term postings are now stricter.