EUROWHISTLE.EU – UPDATE: Whistleblowing Best Practice 2025

5th June 2025 > 4-6 PM CET > online (Zoom)

Is there uniform and effective protection for whistleblowers in the European Union? Has the EU Whistleblowing Directive achieved complete harmonization and introduced the same standard of protection? Where are the main similarities and differences in the Member States? On the occasion of the Eurowhistle.eu Update 2025, we will discuss whistleblowing two years after implementation of the directive and focus on two key topics: the Speak Up Culture and its local challenges and the effective protection of whistleblowers – in the reality.

Antonio Guiseppe di Pietro

Antonio Giuseppe Di Pietro is an Italian lawyer, specialized in business and white-collar criminal law, with a strong background in business intelligence and corporate investigations, and a passion for technology. He has worked in corporate intelligence both in Italy and in the Middle East, before starting his legal practice in Milan, assisting public and corporate clients on M&A, regulatory and anticorruption matters. He co-founded 36Brains, a tech-driven corporate intelligence and investigations company based in Milan and Berlin. He volunteers as a Qualified International Humanitarian Law Counsellor to the Italian Armed Forces. He has held speeches and lectures in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, and his work has been featured on leading European media outlets.

Contact: antonio.dipietro@dpsl.it

Cristian Ducu

Cristian Ducu is President of the European Ethics & Compliance Association and Senior Expert in Governance, Ethics & Compliance, Anti-corruption and Sustainability at the Centre for Advanced Research in Management and Applied Ethics (Bucharest, Romania). He has worked as an Ethics & Compliance external consultant since 2007, collaborating with a wide range of organizations and industries. Since 2009, he has also worked as an external non-financial auditor, focusing on anti-corruption, sustainability, and business integrity in supply chains. Currently, he also holds the position of President of the Ethics Commission of Romanian National Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Organizations, and of the Supervising Commission of Romanian Transparency Registry Association, an industry organization for Public Affairs companies and professionals that manages a local instrument similar to the Transparency Registry from the European Commission. Cristian is regularly involved in activities that shape important public policies, laws and governmental mechanisms on integrity and ethics institutionalization in the public and private sectors.

Philip Brennan

Philip Brennan is Founder and Managing Director of Raiseaconcern (www.raiseaconcern.com), an Irish based firm that works with private and public sector employers in the prevention, detection, investigation and remediation of workplace wrongdoing.  Raiseaconcern sets up and operates Whistleblowing Schemes for employers and acts as ‘Confidential Recipient’ of employee disclosures.  Raiseaconcern intermediates between employers and disclosers to facilitate investigation of allegations of wrongdoing, without disclosing the discloser’s identity. With over 20 years’ experience in this field, Philip has led and overseen numerous investigations of all aspects of workplace wrongdoing, with particularly emphasis in recent years on the area of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at work.  Raiseaconcern provides services across multiple sectors but has conducted extensive work with Irish Government Departments and public service bodies.  Philip has also lectured and published extensively in the area of whistleblowing and addressing workplace wrongdoing. Philip is a former President of the Compliance Institute and of the Irish Tax Institute.  He holds an MSc in Business Administration from University of Dublin, Trinity College, a Professional Diploma in Compliance from University College Dublin and fellowships from the Compliance Institute and the Irish Tax Institute.

Contact: philipbrennan@raiseaconcern.com

Dr. Marcin Ciemiński

Marcin Ciemiński, PhD is a qualified Polish advocate, Partner in the Dispute Resolution Department of Clifford Chance Warsaw, Head of the White-Collar and Regulatory Group. He is a renowned specialist in Poland in commercial, civil and criminal law as well as medical, public procurement and insurance law. Marcin regularly handles matters concerning white-collar crime, criminal investigations, compliance and crisis management. He has substantial experience in advising clients in different aspects of criminal proceedings in Poland as well as in relation to FCPA proceedings. Marcin is an author of books and articles and a speaker on anti-corruption and compliance issues. As an assistant professor he lectures on commercial law at the University of Warsaw. Marcin is recognised by independent legal directories, including Chambers Global, Chambers Europe and Legal 500 EMEA, as a leading lawyer in Dispute Resolution, White-Collar Crime and Healthcare & Life Sciences in Poland.

Bénédicte Querenet-Hahn

Bénédicte Querenet-Hahn is a partner at the German-French law-firm GGV Avocats-Rechtsanwälte. She advises multinational and medium-sized companies as well as corporate groups in the fields of Labour Law and Compliance. One focus of her practice is advising on corporate governance as well as on the introduction and implementation of compliance programs on a national and international level.

Geert Vermeulen

The mission of Geert Vermeulen is to help organizations conduct business in an ethical and compliant way. Geert has been working in ethics and compliance for the last 20 years and is specialized in establishing and improving ethics and compliance programs in general and anti-corruption and whistleblowing programs in specific. In 2016 he founded ECMC. ECMC provides compliance training, consulting services and interim and external ethics & compliance management. Geert has provided compliance training in over 30 countries on virtually all continents. Geert obtained most of his experience in-house. As Global Head of Compliance for Damco, the freight forwarding arm of the AP Möller-Maersk Group, he was responsible for the compliance activities in 90 countries, focusing mainly on anti-bribery and trade restrictions. As Chief Compliance Officer Aon EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) he coordinated compliance efforts in some 60 countries. Geert regularly speaks and writes on ethics and compliance, see www.ethicscompliancemc.com. He has been the President of the Dutch Compliance Officers Association, where he founded the expert group on Financial Economic Crime. He is a member of the expert groups on ESG and on Culture and Behaviour of the association and a member of the Professional Advisory Committee of the Law Compliance Minor at The Hague University. When he was granted the National Compliance Award in 2020, he was labelled ‘the compliance guru’; the jury called him a figurehead and role model for the compliance community. In 2020 Geert founded another company called ‘The Integrity Coordinator’ (www.theintegritycoordinator.com). This company is an independent, external coordinator of whistleblowing or speak up procedures. We advise organizations on the topic and provide courses on the EU and Dutch whistleblower protection legislation and good practices. Let us help you to unleash the power of a good speak-up culture!