Contact Point for Whistleblowers

With the implementation of the EU Whistleblower Directive into national law, companies with at least 50 employees are obliged to provide a whistleblower channel that employees can use to report possible breaches of the law within their company.

Your report allows identifying misconduct by individuals at an early stage, counteract it and thus protect the organisation from greater damage.

For such a whistleblowing report to be possible, the violation must fall within the material scope of the German Whistleblower Protection Act. This applies if it is a violation of EU law or national legislation. The legislator has defined a specific catalogue for this purpose, which covers the following scopes:

• public procurement
• financial services, products and markets,
• and prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing
• product safety and compliance
• transport safety
• protection of the environment
• food safety
• consumer protection
• protection of privacy and personal data
• security of network and information systems
• breaches subject to penalty under German law
• breaches subject to fines under German law where the violated regulation serves to protect life, limb, health or the rights of employees
• other breaches of German federal and state legislation

In addition to the disclosing the material scope, the personal scope must also be disclosed. This defines the group of potential whistleblowers.

This includes in particular:

• employees, including former employees
• volunteers
• applicants
• interns
• service providers and their employees
• shareholders and persons belonging to the administrative, management or supervisory body of a company
• but also: third persons who are connected to the reporting persons and who could suffer retaliation in a work-related context, such as colleagues

Your report will always be treated securely and confidentially. The data will not be forwarded to unauthorised persons or otherwise disclosed. This is ensured by observing and complying with the German Whistleblower Protection Act and the principles of data protection law.

In addition, the legislator has stipulated that whistleblowers do not have to fear any consequences under labour law or further retaliation after submitting a whistleblowing report, provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Truthfulness of the Information

There were reasonable grounds to believe, in light of the circumstances and the information available to them at the time of reporting, that the matters reported by them are true.

2. Material Scope Opened

The reported breach relates to an act or omission that falls within the material scope.

3. Use of the Authorised Reporting Channel

You have used the whistleblower channel to submit your report. Alternatively, you are free to submit the report via the external reporting channel, which is operated by the competent supervisory authority. In this case, the report will be processed exclusively by the supervisory authority.

We would like to emphasise that the presumption of innocence with regard to the accused person or the accusation applies in the first instance when processing reports. In addition, we will inform you of the current status of processing within the given deadlines. It may be necessary for us to contact you if we have any queries. We ask for your co-operation during the entire review process, as this is the only way to ensure that the facts of the case are fully clarified. Your identity will not be disclosed to the management or other third parties.

Accordingly, notifications that don’t fall under the material scope cannot be tracked and processed. In addition to the loss of the right to protection, the legislator also provides for sanctions and claims for damages against the whistleblower for reports or disclosures of knowingly false information. This is the case if a false report is made wilfully or through gross negligence. This does not include reports that you firmly believed to be true at the time of reporting.

To ensure that your report is treated confidentially and that the integrity of the reported facts is maintained at all times, we ask that you only use the internal whistleblower channel listed below. This will ensure that only authorised persons have access to your report.

FIOR & GENTZ has set up an internal reporting channel that enables employees and external partners to report concerns about misconduct or ethical breaches confidentially and securely. Reports can be submitted verbally, in writing or in person.


The whistleblower channel for written reports can be accessed via the following link: