Whistleblower on the slaughter bench

An employee representative at a food production- and slaughter company assisted a colleague in a meeting with the company. Allegedly, the colleague had called his manager "idiot" and "fool", so the company gave him a verbal warning.

After the meeting, the employee representative emailed the company expressing shock at the company's behavior. In the email, he described the company as "judge, jury and executioner" and believed it had acted arrogantly, rudely and disrespectfully. Finally, the employee representative wrote that he hoped the company would improve in the future and speak to the manager in question.

In response to the email, he received a written warning for violating the company's work rules on considerate behavior. Eventually, the employee representative was also reassigned. The employee representative believed the reassignment was unlawful retaliation in connection with the notification. The Norwegian Supreme Court, therefore, had to decide whether the employee representative's email constituted whistleblowing.

You’ve got mail

The Norwegian Supreme Court found that the employee's email was whistleblowing. This was particularly because the email concerned censurable conditions.

The company's work regulations on considerate behavior had to be regarded as an ethical guideline. Breaches of ethical guidelines may constitute censurable conditions. As the behavior described by the employee representative in his email could be a breach of ethical guidelines, the employee representative's email concerned censurable conditions.

In addition, the court found that the company had reason to interpret the email as a notification. The reason was that the employee representative clearly stated that what he said should be followed up by the company.

IUNO’s opinion

Many companies use dedicated internal or external whistleblowing channels. This case illustrates that notifications sent by other means will also be a notification. There are no format or procedural requirements. It is also not decisive that the whistleblower specifically informs that the notification is a notification.

IUNO recommends that companies pay attention to all criticism from employees. Companies should always assess in the concrete case whether the criticism can be considered a notification or not.

[The Norwegian Supreme Court’s judgement of 21 December 2023 in case HR-2023-2430-A]