In the hypotheses envisaged by law (Articles 6 and 15 of Legislative Decree No. 24 of March 10, 2023), the Whistleblower may make an external report through the channel established by ANAC (accessible on its website) or make a public disclosure, while still retaining the right to the protections provided by the regulations and the company’s whistleblowing procedure.
It should be noted that the use of the External Whistleblowing channel established at ANAC can only take place if:
- the internal Whistleblowing channel indicated in the Procedure is not active;
- the Whistleblower has already made a Report to the channel indicated in the Procedure and the same has not been successful;
- the Whistleblower has well-founded reason to believe that, if he or she made an Internal Report through the channel set forth in this Procedure, the Report would not be followed up or the Report could result in the risk of retaliation;
- the Whistleblower has reasonable grounds to believe that the violation to be reported may pose an imminent or obvious danger to the public interest.
The Whistleblower may make an External Report through the channel established by ANAC (accessible on its website) in the following cases:
- offenses that fall within the scope of European Union or national acts related to the following areas: public procurement; services, products and financial markets and prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism; product safety and compliance; transport safety; environmental protection; radiation protection and nuclear safety; food and feed safety and animal health and welfare; public health; consumer protection; privacy and personal data protection; and security of networks and information systems;
- acts or omissions affecting the financial interests of the European Union;
- acts or omissions affecting the internal market, including violations of the European Union’s competition and state aid rules as well as violations affecting the internal market related to acts that violate corporate tax rules or mechanisms whose purpose is to obtain a tax advantage that frustrates the object or purpose of the applicable corporate tax law;
- acts or conduct that frustrates the object or purpose of the provisions of the Union acts in the areas indicated in the preceding numbers.
For the use of this External Reporting channel, please refer to the guidelines and ANAC’s official website at this address: https://www.anticorruzione.it/-/whistleblowing
Finally, it should be noted that upon the occurrence of the following conditions, set forth in Article 15 of the Whistleblowing Decree and on the ANAC website, the Whistleblower is allowed to resort to public disclosure if the Whistleblower
- has previously made an internal and external report or has directly made an external report and has not received a response;
- has well-founded reason to believe that the violation may constitute imminent or obvious danger to the public interest;
- has well-founded reason to believe that the external report may involve the risk of retaliation or may not be effectively followed up due to the specific circumstances of the concrete case, such as those where evidence may be concealed or destroyed or where there is a well-founded fear that the recipient of the report may be colluding with or involved in the perpetrator of the violation.