The internal reporting channel duty in Estonia

2024-09-01

50 or more employees for legal persons, § 8(2)(3): "juriidilisel isikul, kus on 50 või enam töötajat". Also covered, with no or a different threshold: all state agencies referred to in § 6(2) of the Civil Service Act and their administered bodies (no threshold); local-government agencies with 50 or more servants, or municipalities with 10,000 or more inhabitants; and entities under state financial supervision within the meaning of § 2(2) of the Financial Supervision Authority Act, these must have a channel regardless of headcount (§ 8(2)(4)).

1 January 2025. § 23 (rakendussäte): "Käesoleva seaduse § 8 lõike 2 punkti 3 kohaldatakse juriidiliste isikute suhtes, kus on 50, 249 töötajat, alates 2025. aasta 1. jaanuarist." Estonia missed the Directive's 17 December 2021/2023 dates entirely, the Act only entered into force on 1 September 2024.

Not required. The Act contains no provision on anonymous reporting. §§ 8(1) and 9(1) require channels enabling confidential reporting (written, oral, or both internally; oral by voice message and in person plus written externally), and § 14 requires the reporter's identity to be kept confidential and disclosed only with written consent. Accepting anonymous reports is therefore left to the employer.

No single body. External reports go to the "pädev asutus", the state or local-government authority that has statutory competence to exercise state, administrative or service supervision over the breach, or to conduct offence proceedings on it (§ 6(1)); each such authority must set up its own external channel and publish its receipt and follow-up requirements (§ 9). Misdemeanour proceedings under §§ 18, 21 are conducted extrajudicially by the Politsei- ja Piirivalveamet (Police and Border Guard Board), or by the Kaitsepolitseiamet (Internal Security Service) where it detects the offence in its own proceedings (§ 22).

None for failing to establish an internal channel, the Act attaches no misdemeanour to the § 8(2) duty. The offences in Chapter 4 are: obstructing reporting (§ 18), applying retaliatory measures against a reporter (§ 19) and breaching the reporter's confidentiality (§ 20), each punishable by a fine of up to 300 fine units for a natural person and up to EUR 100,000 for a legal person; and knowingly false reporting (§ 21), up to 300 fine units. A fine unit is EUR 8 (Penal Code § 47(1)), so 300 units is EUR 2,400. Attempt is punishable for §§ 18 and 19.

Yes, expressly. § 8(3): the internal channel is administered by a person or unit designated by the agency or legal person "või asutuseväline kolmas isik" (or an external third party), who is responsible for receiving reports, keeping contact with and giving feedback to the reporter, and notifying follow-up measures.