On Wednesday 21 November, MEPs explored ways to increase the protection of whistle-blowers who reveal money laundering scandals in a special European Parliament committee on financial crime, TAXE 3. They noted that the EU has much to learn from the United States in this area.
Their guest of honour was whistle-blower Howard Wilkinson (see EUROPE 12108), who helped to reveal the money laundering scandal hitting the Estonian subsidiary of Denmark's leading bank, Danske Bank (see EUROPE 12102).
Mr Wilkinson went into detail on the case and also provided several written responses to Members of Parliament. In one of them, he explained that after his resignation, the bank asked him to sign a very restrictive confidentiality agreement, which prohibited, inter alia, any communication with the law enforcement authorities. He also considers that the bank has not put in place the necessary controls to protect its identity, thereby jeopardizing its privacy.
In his view, these bank confidentiality agreements that prevent the reporting of illegal actions should be banned and the EU should urgently improve the protection of whistle-blowers.
Wilkinson's whistle-blower protection expert and lawyer Stephen M. Kohn also advocated this and called on the EU to consider whistle-blowers as "powerful tools" in the fight against tax fraud.
In his view, the EU should take as an example the United States, which has harmonized different protective measures within the US tax code and provides for financial compensation when the information provided leads to an investigation and conviction.
These laws have significantly increased the detection of financial crimes, he explained. In 2017, 92% of tax fraud detections and recoveries were made possible by whistle-blowers.
"Non-disclosure agreements present a real and very harmful obstacle to would-be whistle-blowers in Europe. [...] There is an urgent need for legislative action on whistle-blower protection, both at EU and Member State level,” said Jeppe Kofod (S&D) of Denmark, in a statement following the hearing.
A delegation of MEPs from the special committee 'TAXE 3' is expected to travel to Denmark and Estonia at the beginning of February to continue investigating the Danske Bank case. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana and Camille-Cerise Gessant)