WASHINGTON, D.C. | April 14, 2021 — Next week, on April 20th, the National Whistleblower Center (NWC) will co-host the 18th edition of the Tax, Law & Lobby Conference virtually, alongside Business Review and the Romanian Business Leaders Foundation. The conference will discuss recently proposed legislation and the future of whistleblower regulations in Romania.
The Conference will feature multiple high-profile speakers, including whistleblower experts who will share success stories from other countries and weigh in on the need for a robust rewards program and whistleblower protection regime.Among the speakers are Romania’s Minister of Justice, Stelian Ion, Member of the Parliament of Romania, Sebastian Burduja, UBS bank whistleblower, Bradley Birkenfeld, NWC Board Chair, Stephen M. Kohn, and Whistleblowing International Executive Director, Mark Worth.
Regarding the event, Mr. Kohn, said: “Romanian business leaders, anti-corruption politicians, international whistleblower advocates and whistleblowers themselves have come together to insist on the protection of whistleblowers in Europe. With Romania taking the lead on adopting the EU Whistleblowing Directive, this conference and the corresponding draft laws can lay a foundation of protection for whistleblowers in the EU indefinitely.”
Romania is the first European Union (EU) member country to incorporate all of NWC’s recommendations for whistleblower protection and rewards in a recently proposed draft law. If adopted, this legislation would transpose the EU’s 2019 Whistleblowing Directive into Romanian law to protect whistleblowers who report waste, fraud, and abuse. With NWC’s recommendations implemented in full, the law would regulate the protection of whistleblowers who report violations of the law within legal entities and the provision of rewards for whistleblowers from damages recovered by Romanian public authorities.
