Who can submit a whistleblowing claim?
Whistleblowing claims can either be submitted by staff members of The European Money Markets Institute (hereafter ‘EMMI’) or any concerned individual wishing to address any relevant concern in order to:
- Report suspicious or manipulative activity, or other issues that may affect the integrity of EMMI’s benchmarks [infringements to the Benchmarks Regulation (Art. 14.3), a collusion or suspicion of collusion aiming at of manipulating – or attempting to manipulate – a benchmark under Regulation (EU) No 596/2014];
- Report any other instances of potentially suspicious or manipulative behaviour which affect the determination, and publication of EMMI’s benchmarks;
- Any other matter.
Should the claim not be a whistleblowing claim but rather a complaint, please use the complaints form to report your concern.
How do we process your claim?
- We treat it confidentially. Your claim and any related Information you provide us with at the beginning of, or throughout the process is stored and recorded securely. It is only accessible to the appointed Whistleblowing Manager. We only share this information with those internal stakeholders required to be involved in the processing and resolution of your claim as well as regulators, as needed.
- We acknowledge receipt of your claim within 7 working days.
- We provide you with our response to the claim within 3 months starting from the date of the acknowledgement of receipt.
Should you not be satisfied with our response, you can appeal it with the Federal Ombudsman in Belgium (The Federal Institute for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights).
In the event that allegations made by a third party through these channels turn out to be false and/or made in bad faith, The European Money Markets Institute may decide to take legal action or file a complaint with a regulatory or supervisory agency.
How can you submit a whistleblowing claim?
Whistleblowing claims may be submitted to The European Money Markets Institute through any the below-listed communication channels:
- Our online form
- A letter addressed to:
- By telephone: +32 2 290 83 02
- By email: whistleblowing@emmi-benchmarks.eu
- Upon request, in person to the Whistleblowing Manager.
Please note that where a recorded telephone line or any other recorded voice messaging system is used for reporting, subject to your consent as claimant, the Whistleblowing Manager has the right to document the oral reporting in one of the following ways:
- By making a recording of the conversation in a durable and retrievable form; or
- Through a complete and accurate transcript of the conversation. The Whistleblowing Manager will offer the claimant the opportunity to check, rectify and agree the transcript of the call by signing it.
Where an unrecorded telephone line or another unrecorded voice messaging system is used for reporting, the Whistleblowing Manager has the right to document the oral reporting in the form of accurate minutes of the conversation. The Whistleblowing Manager will offer the claimant the opportunity to check, rectify and agree the transcript of the call by signing it.
Where a claimant requests a meeting in person with the Whistleblowing Manager, the latter shall ensure, subject to the consent of the claimant, that complete and accurate records of the meeting are kept in a durable and retrievable form. The meetings can be documented in one of the following ways:
- By making a recording of the conversation in a durable and retrievable form; or
- Through accurate minutes of the meeting. The Whistleblowing Manager will offer the claimant the opportunity to check, rectify and agree the transcript of the meeting by signing it.
If the whistleblowing claim is made anonymously, and, in the absence of communication means specified by the claimant to reach them to validate a transcript, the Whistleblowing Manager will not be able to perform such validation by them.
Does the claim have negative consequences for a whistleblower?
Under the Belgian Whistleblower’s Act of 28/11/2022 published on 15/12/2022, reporting persons are protected (protection against retaliation by the Federal Ombudsman) if they had reasonable grounds to believe the reported information was true at the time of reporting and that such information fell within the scope of this Act. Both the conditions for protection and sanctions are available in the Belgian Act in FR and NL accessible below.
Moniteur Belge - Belgisch Staatsblad (fgov.be) FR
Moniteur Belge - Belgisch Staatsblad (fgov.be) NL