The Whistleblower Psionic Community Medium Enterprises
Introduction
The Medium Enterprise is very important to the Australian economy and ecology. Medium Enterprises make up 2.5% of all Australian businesses. There are approximately 64 000 Medium Enterprises. They tend to have revenue of $10 – $250 million dollars per year and approximately 80% have incomes of less than $50 million. They generally conduct business within and outside of national boundaries. And their staffing needs range from 20 people to 199.
What is Whistleblowing?
Most Medium Enterprises are fully aware of whistleblowing. Whistleblowing is the activity of a person, often an employee, a supplier, or other stakeholder who reveals information about activity, through disclosure, within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whistleblowers use a variety of internal or external channels to communicate information or allegations to various organizations in order to protect the rights of the individual. Some of these protections include education, investigation, prosecution, and other legal means of correction.
There are penalties for organizations that breach Whistleblower’s rights. These include different civil and criminal penalties for a corporation and for individuals. The maximum civil penalty for corporation carries the greater of $13,750,000, or 3 times that amount, or 10% of the annual turnover of the entity up to a maximum of $687,500,000. The government is currently working on a compensation system for Whistleblowers which will encourage citizens to step forward and disclose.
As a Medium Enterprise, or Medium Corporate Group, it is important that you, the CEO, the Directors, and Upper Level Management safeguards your business from misconduct takeover by rogue staff and/or frontline managers creating their own business laws and actions. Within the last five years amendments to the existing laws regarding corporate responsibility for encouraging and assisting staff members and management in whistleblowing There was an amendment to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and Taxation Administration Act 1953 (Cth). These change provide for an expanded corporate whistleblowing scheme and a new tax affairs whistleblowing scheme which was commenced just before the COVID-19 outbreak. Public companies and large proprietary companies had until 1 January 2020 to implement a compliant whistleblowing policy. The scope of the amendment affects “regulated entities” in the corporate, financial and credit sectors and should be view as top priority.
What Specifically Does the Amended Legislation Dictate
The changes to the Corporations Act Mean that:
- There is a broader range of conduct which can be reported and be entitled to protection.
- It specifies that the conduct needs to be concerned with “misconduct” or an “improper state of affairs”.
- Disclosures will be able to be made anonymously and do not need to be made in “good faith”.
- The Whistleblower will need to have reasonable grounds for their concern.
- Personal work-related grievances (Disclosures) will only be protected in certain limited circumstances.
- A disclosure of a work-related grievance will be protected if it relates to systemic issues, or involves detrimental conduct to the whistleblower.
- A disclosure of a work related grievance will also be protected if it is made to a legal practitioner to obtain legal advice or representation in relation to the whistleblower provisions.
- The amended laws will apply to disclosures even if the disclosed conduct occurred before the commencement date.
- The victimization and compensation provisions apply to protected disclosures made at any time, if the victimization in occurs after the commencement date.
The Whistleblower Small Enterprise Program
The Small Enterprise Whistleblower Kit is designed to teach you and your business precisely how to use your personal power, along with specialty knowledge to report (disclose) workplace and personal offences that represent misconduct, or harm to your staff and your business. Our Small Enterprise Program contains the following benefits and Features.
- Psionic Community Turnkey System Training Program
- Psionic Community Disclosure Reporting System
- Private and Anonymous Identity for each staff person and for other stakeholders to use.
- Investigative Services for Disclosure Documents Reporting
- Investigative Follow-up for All Reported Disclosures and Disclosure Reports to all Upper level Management and Owners.
Who Receives the Disclosures?
Any upper level management or Compliance Officer may receive incident Disclosure for whistleblowing. Whistleblowing Psionic Community offers the Whistleblower Psionic Community Medium Enterprise a specific System to facilitate whistleblowing within their organization. All stakeholders within a corporate structure have a duty of care to ensure to maintain a safe, moral, and ethical environment. They are trained to report provide evidence and they submit the Disclosures to Whistleblower Psionic Community who will then process them and present them to one or more of the following:
- ASIC, APRA, and other prescribed Commonwealth authorities;
- An auditor or actuary of the entity; and
- Persons authorized to receive disclosures such as a Whistleblowing Hotline.
- Private and Anonymous Identity for each staff person and for other stakeholders to use.
- Investigative Services for Disclosure Documents Reporting
- Investigative Follow-up for All Reported Disclosures and Disclosure Reports to all Upper level Management and Owners.
Our Disclosure processing systems streamlines the disclosures ensuring that the whistleblowers rights within the organization are preserved. We ensure that the organization doesn’t experience consequences for engaging in wrong conduct.
Consequences for Engaging in Detrimental Conduct
The Whistleblower has the rights to work in relative peace and harmony without malicious conduct. And when they are forced to report Disclosure for corporate white collar crimes they are protect by law. Detrimental conduct against a disclosing employee or other stakeholder is defined under the Corporations Act as:
- Dismissal of an employee;
- Injury of an employee in his or her employment;
- Alteration of an employee’s position or duties to his or her disadvantage;
- Discrimination between an employee and other employees of the same employer;
- Harassment or intimidation of a person;
- Harm or injury to a person, including psychological harm;
- Damage to a person’s property, reputation, business or financial position; or
- Any other damage to a person.
Your staff represents approximately 30% of your expenses. It they are not performing their duties in a manner that the Corporation Act would deem trustworthy, accountable, and transparent within their business operations they should and will be held accountable. A report posted by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission stated that serious and organized crime in Australia in 2020–21 to be between $24.8b and $60.1b. The types of crime include: Illicit drug activity, Organized financial crime, Crimes against the person, Illicit commodities, Pure cybercrime, Serious and organized crime enabling costs. Please see https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr38 for more information. These numbers are staggering as they represent 3.5 percent of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product total that is lost to practical and productive use.
The Penalty for Breaching a Whistleblower’s Rights
Introduction
Breaching a whistleblower’s anonymity and engaging in (or threatening to engage in) detrimental conduct towards a whistleblower or potential whistleblower, carries different civil and criminal penalties for a corporation and for individuals. The maximum civil penalty for corporation carries the greater of $13,750,000, or 3 times that amount, or 10% of the annual turnover of the entity up to a maximum of $687,500,000. The penalty depends upon whether a Court can determine the benefit/detriment balance due to the contravention,
Civil penalties for an individual may carry $1,375,000 or if a Court can determine the benefit derived or detriment avoided, 3 times that amount. Failure to comply with the confidentiality and detrimental conduct provisions will also be criminal offences, punishable by imprisonment and / or fines.
Breach of Confidentiality
Breach of confidentiality will carry criminal penalties of $16,500 or imprisonment for six months, or both for individuals and $165,000 for a body corporate. Penalties for an individual who causes or threatens to cause detrimental conduct (including victimization and retaliation) to a whistleblower or a person who may be a whistleblower may be exposed to up to $66,000 or imprisonment for two years or $660,000 for a body corporate.
Summary
Did you learn anything in the Article? We hope that you did. How would you summarize this little article. If you would like to review the article again and try a “listening” experience click on the Article Audio at the right hand side of the page.
Thank you for reading!
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2024 Copyright Sabrina Renee Lemire