The internal reporting channel duty in Denmark
Denmark transposed Directive (EU) 2019/1937 with Lov nr. 1436 af 29. juni 2021 om beskyttelse af whistleblowere (whistleblowerloven), Justitsministeriet (Act No. 1436 of 29 June 2021 on the Protection of Whistleblowers). Below is what the national act itself says, with the sources, so your counsel can check every line.
2021-12-17
Not confirmed from a primary source. We check this before you sign anything.
17 December 2023 for private workplaces with 50, 249 employees. Public workplaces and private workplaces with 250+ employees had to comply by 17 December 2021.
Optional, not mandatory. The Ministry of Justice guidance states it plainly: "Det er valgfrit for arbejdspladsen, om det skal være muligt at foretage anonym indberetning", and "Whistleblowerenheden er ikke forpligtet til at behandle anonyme indberetninger." If the employer does allow anonymous reporting, the unit should still acknowledge receipt where technically possible.
Datatilsynet (the Danish Data Protection Agency) operates the national external whistleblower scheme, Den Nationale Whistleblowerordning (whistleblower.dk, wb@datatilsynet.dk). No authority is charged with supervising whether employers actually have an internal scheme; enforcement is criminal.
Fine (bøde), with no statutory maximum or minimum, the level is set by the courts case by case. § 30(2) punishes with a fine an employer covered by § 9 that fails to meet the obligations in § 10 (written/oral reporting forms), § 11 (designated whistleblower unit/contact person), § 12(1), (2) (confidentiality and case-handling procedures), § 13 (information duty to employees) and § 16 (documentation duty), obligations an employer with no scheme at all necessarily fails. Note that § 9 itself (the duty to establish the scheme) is not listed in § 30(2). § 30(1) fines intentional or grossly negligent breach of the confidentiality duty in § 25 and knowingly reporting or publishing false information. § 30(3) allows corporate criminal liability under Chapter 5 of the Danish Criminal Code.
The Act itself permits it: § 11, stk. 2, "De opgaver, der er nævnt i stk. 1, kan varetages af en ekstern tredjepart eller en arbejdsgiver i et koncernforbundet selskab, som skal leve op til de krav om behandling, der følger af denne lov." The MoJ guidance pkt. 3.6 only elaborates (platform provider/lawyer/auditor, written guarantee, keep an internal liaison unit).
§ 14 is limited to the private sector: "Arbejdsgivere i den private sektor med 50-249 ansatte kan dele ressourcer...". Public employers of that size cannot rely on § 14; municipalities have a separate rule in § 15 (a kommunalbestyrelse may perform the § 11(1) tasks for other municipalities, or establish the scheme in a kommunalt fællesskab under § 60 of the Local Government Act).
One channel for a group that operates in more than one member state
A group with entities in Denmark and elsewhere in the EU does not get one law, it gets one per country: different rules on anonymous reports, different authorities, different deadlines and penalties. We set the channel up once and configure it per entity against each national act, from the same verified reference you are reading.