The Georgian Statutory Framework of Whistleblower Programs
The Georgian statutory framework of a whistleblower program — the mechanism of internal reporting on suspicious transactions — lies in the law on the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing. The law builds the channel from employee to responsible person, protects the fact of reporting from disclosure and defines the guarantee of decision-making independence. At the same time, the multi-tier channel model of the European whistleblowing directive is non-Georgian and cannot carry this page; a full administrative regime of protection from dismissal requires a separate law — that issue is treated on another of our pages. Here the carrier is the Georgian regime of internal reporting.
The Anatomy of the Internal Channel — From Employee to Service
An accountable person must submit to the Financial Monitoring Service a report on a suspicious transaction or an attempt to prepare, conclude or perform such a transaction. The internal channel of a whistleblower program is precisely the forward perimeter of this duty: an employee who, in the course of activity, notices a transaction not matching the client's profile or connected with illegally obtained property supplies the information to the responsible person, and the responsible person to the service. The law also recognizes the splitting of transaction amounts: connected transactions are detected to prevent the client's evasion of the prescribed measures. The National Agency of Public Registry also, in specified cases, submits a report on a suspicious transaction before the registration of a right over immovable property, and if the service does not exercise its authority within no later than 24 hours of receiving the report, the registration process continues. The internal reporting system is thus part of a single state mechanism.
Protection from Disclosure
The accountable person, its managers and employees are prohibited from notifying the client or another person that measures are being taken to study an unusual transaction or detect a suspicious transaction, or that a report has been submitted to the service. This prohibition is the whistleblower's first and most important protection: disclosing the fact of reporting to the client — tipping-off — is a violation of law. At the same time, no liability may be imposed on the accountable person, its managers or employees for breach of a confidentiality duty where the obligation to submit the report to the service has been performed in good faith. The law also prohibits disclosing the identity of the employee who notices an unusual transaction or submits a report, and obliges the accountable person to protect that employee from threats, discriminatory treatment or other unlawful influence — this is the foundation of the Georgian whistleblower's protection.