Personal scope
Directive on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law · UE 2019/1937
Personal scope
1. This Directive shall apply to reporting persons working in the private or public sector who acquired information on breaches in a work-related context including, at least, the following:
| (a) | persons having the status of worker, within the meaning of Article 45(1) TFEU, including civil servants; |
| (b) | persons having self-employed status, within the meaning of Article 49 TFEU; |
| (c) | shareholders and persons belonging to the administrative, management or supervisory body of an undertaking, including non-executive members, as well as volunteers and paid or unpaid trainees; |
| (d) | any persons working under the supervision and direction of contractors, subcontractors and suppliers. |
2. This Directive shall also apply to reporting persons where they report or publicly disclose information on breaches acquired in a work-based relationship which has since ended.
3. This Directive shall also apply to reporting persons whose work-based relationship is yet to begin in cases where information on breaches has been acquired during the recruitment process or other pre-contractual negotiations.
4. The measures for the protection of reporting persons set out in Chapter VI shall also apply, where relevant, to:
| (a) | facilitators; |
| (b) | third persons who are connected with the reporting persons and who could suffer retaliation in a work-related context, such as colleagues or relatives of the reporting persons; and |
| (c) | legal entities that the reporting persons own, work for or are otherwise connected with in a work-related context. |
In Luxembourg, the law of 16 May 2023 on the protection of whistleblowers transposes this personal scope and extends it to all sectors (general and tax), beyond the directive's domains alone. The internal channel obligation applies from 50 employees in the private and public sector, with no threshold for public bodies. Retaliation against a person within the extended scope (including facilitators and connected third parties) exposes the organisation to criminal fines of 1,250 to 25,000 EUR, doubled in case of recidivism, in addition to civil compensation.
Luxgap practice: map your contractors, trainees and former collaborators now, since the OFRS interprets the personal scope broadly during an inspection.
