The internal regulations of companies must now include the protection of whistleblowers

Law n°2022-401 of March 21, 2022 obliges companies employing at least 50 employees to update their rules of procedure with effect from September 1, 2022, in order to take into account recent legislative changes aimed at improve the protection of whistleblowers, originally resulting from law n°2016-1691 of December 9, 2016.

 

Thus, the internal regulations will have to recall the existence of this whistleblower protection system (new article L. 1321-2 of the Labor Code).

 

Otherwise, the rules of procedure must recall the provisions of the Labor Code relating to the prevention and repression of sexual harassment and moral harassment at work. However, these provisions were modified by the same law of March 21, 2022. The rules of procedure must therefore reproduce the new version of article L. 1152-2 (on moral harassment) and article L. 1153-2 (on sexual harassment) of the Labor Code, both of which grant whistleblower protection to persons who have been victims of or witnesses to such acts. Article L. 1153-3, which has become redundant, is repealed (article L. 1153-4 therefore ceases to refer to it).

 

Updating the rules of procedure to comply with the law of March 21, 2022 can also be an opportunity to integrate measures from previous laws, which sometimes have not been taken into account. This is the case, in particular, of the prohibition of sexist acts, as well as neutrality clauses.

 

It should be recalled that the procedure for modifying the internal regulations follows that for their implementation: consultation of the CSE, advertising to the staff and filing with both the labor inspectorate and the industrial tribunal, at least one month before the entry into force of the regulation. Consequently, for those who have not yet anticipated it, companies should launch this summer project without delay, with a view to coming into force on September 1, 2022.