The Whistleblower Protection Act at Stannol
About the Act and its background
The HinSchG is the German implementation of the EU Whistleblower Directive. The purpose is to enable employees to report information about legal violations within companies.
The law protects whistleblowers who report company-related legal violations from reprisals and supports the transparency and exposure of these legal violations.
From 17 December 2023, companies with 50 or more employees are obliged to introduce a reporting system that ensures confidentiality for the whistleblower and also protects them from reprisals by reversing the burden of proof.
Protected persons include whistleblowers who have obtained information about breaches in a professional context. Information about private misconduct is not covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act.
The area of application of the Act includes the reporting and disclosure of information about offences that are subject to criminal penalties and fines as well as other violations of federal and state legislation and directly applicable EU legislation.
Reporting channels
Stannol offers the following options for reporting cases:
- ONLINE: cases that fall within the area of application can be sent to the following e-mail address: hinweis@stannol.de
Only authorised persons will have access to this e-mail account.
You can also use the contact form below to submit a report.
- OFFLINE: cases that fall within the area of appliction can be addressed via a letterbox – which is located next to the time clock in Schrobenhausen and Velbert.
- BY TELEPHONE: cases that fall within the area of appliction can be reported by telephone to any of the following persons
Susanne Schlüter
Diana Merkwitz
Beatrice Seliger
These persons can be contacted via their landline numbers or mobile phones during working hours.
Confidentiality and the prohibition of reprisals are key to the protection of whistleblowers. Therefore, please consider open communication with us, but reports received anonymously will also be investigated.
In addition to the above-mentioned reporting channels, there are also external reporting centres, e.g. the Federal Office of Justice, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the Federal Cartel Office (BKartA) and the external reporting centres of the federal states or other external reporting centres in accordance with § 23 HinSchG.
Procedure of a report
If the whistleblower is named, confirmation of receipt will be sent within seven days at the latest.
The internal reporting centre will provide feedback to the whistleblower within three months of the confirmation of receipt regarding planned and already taken follow-up measures as well as the reasons for these measures. Feedback may only be provided to the whistleblower to the extent that this does not affect internal enquiries or investigations and does not prejudice the rights of the persons who are the subject of a report or who are named in the report.
If you submit your report anonymously and do not provide a contact option, we will not be able to contact you in the further procedure in the event of any queries and, if necessary, inform you about the result of our investigation.
Area of application
Please also note that the protection within the Whistleblower Protection Act, for example against reprisals for a report, only applies if you had reasonable grounds to believe at the time of the report that the information you reported was true.Deliberately providing false information may also result in consequences under criminal law.
You must therefore have factual evidence to support the assumption of an offence, for example because you noticed the offence yourself or made reliable enquiries. Pure speculation is not covered by whistleblower protection. Therefore, if possible, name all the evidence available to you (e.g. witnesses, certificates, other documents, photo files etc.).