U.S. Whistleblower Attorney Helps Shape Bulgaria’s New Whistleblower Law

Geoff Schweller

Published On: May 17th, 2023

In early 2023, Bulgaria passed a Whistleblower Protection Act which is set to take full effect on December 17, 2023. The law, which brings Bulgaria into accordance with the EU’s 2019 Whistleblowing Protection Directive, was drafted with the consultation of Stephen M. Kohn, founding partner of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto.

According to the Basel Institute on Governance: “The law’s text was primarily developed under former Minister of Justice Nadezhda Yordanova (DB) in the cabinet of Kiril Petkov (PP), and in the latter stages by caretaker Minister of Justice Krum Zarkov (BSP). We were pleased to see the advice of our ICAR specialists taken into account in the draft law, together with the results of a public consultation forum facilitated by our consultant Stephen M. Kohn, an international expert and founder of the U.S. National Whistleblower Center.”

Bulgaria’s Whistleblower Protection Act “mandates the establishment of channels for internal whistleblowing reports and the designation of the CPDP as the central body to process external reports and forward them to the competent authorities,” according to the Basel Institute on Governance.

Kohn and his colleagues at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto have worked pro bono to help European nations pass strong whistleblower laws following the EU Whistleblower Directive of 2019.

In September 2020, Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto’s pro bono team wrote to each EU member country providing guidance and recommendations on whistleblower legislation. The guidance included expanding whistleblower protections to cover disclosures permitted under international anti-corruption conventions signed by Member States, narrowly interpreting the EU Directive’s Article 22 in order to ensure that whistleblowers are not chilled from making disclosures and their confidentiality is maintained, and enacting whistleblower reward laws to combat specific legal violations, including foreign bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, government procurement fraud, and ocean pollution.