Whistleblower Protection
Qualified investigation and response to reports helps us to prevent and ensure a proper reaction to unlawful activities.
Unlawful activities and abuse of law may occur in any organisation, whether private or public, big or small. They can take many forms: corruption, fraud, business malpractice or negligence. And if they are not addressed, it can result in serious harm to the public interest as well as to the organisation’s reputation.
People who work for an organisation or are in contact with it in their work-related activities are often the first to know about such occurrences and are therefore in a privileged position to inform those who can address the problem.
Whistleblowers, i.e. persons who report information about wrongdoing in a work-related context, help to prevent damage and detect threat or harm to the public interest that may otherwise remain hidden.
We in Zentiva believe that a qualified investigation and response to such reports helps us to prevent and ensure a proper reaction to such unlawful activities. That’s why Zentiva introduced the Zentiva Speak Up initiative.
In 2019, The European Union adopted a Directive on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (as of 23 October, 2019, no. 2019/1937, hereinafter the “Directive”). This Directive provides whistleblowers with slightly different protection than the Zentiva Speak Up initiative and whistleblowers’ protection under the Directive is thus implemented separately with respect to applicable laws of the countries where Zentiva is present.
If you wish to make a report under the Zentiva Group, a.s. EU whistleblower protection system and the act no. 171/2023 Coll., as amended, this is the right place.
Zentiva Group, a.s. has appointed a designated person for this role:
Petra Rihova
+420 267 242 440
whistleblowing-cz@zentiva.com
Reporting channels
Zentiva Group, a.s. introduced an internal reporting channel in an electronic form, which you can find here and which we refer here to as the “Platform”. On top of that, Zentiva Group, a.s. also accepts verbal reports and on a base of your request, personally made reports.
Please read the following information carefully which may help you to proceed correctly.
Please note that by sending the report via the Platform you confirm that you are familiar with this information as well as with our Privacy Notice for Speak Up and Whistleblowing.
Please note that Zentiva Group, a.s. is not accepting any anonymous reports. It means that you are required to share with us your personal details, but there is no need to worry, all the information you share with us is protected with strict confidentiality obligation and must not be shared without your consent with any third person. We also feel very committed to ensure that you will suffer no retaliation related to your report.
Please note further that Zentiva Group, a.s. is not accepting reports from persons that are not performing work or similar activities named in § 2 sec. 3 let. a), b), h) or i) of the act no. 171/2023 Coll., as amended, for Zentiva Group, a.s.
To enjoy the whistleblower protection and the protection established by the act no. 121/2023 Col.., as amended, you
- at the time of making the report, given the circumstances and information available to you at that time, shall have good reason to believe that the facts reported are authentic and true. Therefore, you cannot report knowingly false facts;
- shall not engage in conduct that could have the nature of a crime when obtaining documents documenting the reported facts;
- shall act in the public interest and in good faith that the report submitted by you is based on credible facts and circumstances.
Please note that you will very much help us to investigate the facts you report if you
- are able to identify the area of the illegal act and think about what verifiable information you can provide about the reported illegal act. The extent and quality of the information submitted by you can positively influence the way we can investigate your report and make the proper corrective and preventive actions eventually;
- share with us as much detail as you can remember;
- allow us to share your personal details not only with the designated person but also with other members of the investigation team. Our confidentiality obligation will then cover the members of the investigational team and the prohibition of retaliation will still apply.
You can choose any available reporting channel provided by Zentiva. We recommend to use the Platform as we believe it is the most effective channel.
Your report falls within the Whistleblowers protection only if it concerns such a breach (unlawful activity) that either
(i) fulfils the characteristics of a crime,
or
(ii) fulfils the characteristics of an administrative offence punishable with a fine with upper limit at least CZK 100.000,
or
(iii) breaches the act no. 171/2023 Coll. (Czech Whistleblowers Protection Act) as amended,
or
(iv) breaches other legal regulation, Czech or EU, in any of the following areas:
- financial services, products and markets, mandatory audits and other verification services;
- taxation of legal entities;
- prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing;
- consumer protection;
- product safety and compliance;
- transport safety, traffic safety;
- protection of the environment;
- food and feed safety, animal health and welfare;
- radiation protection and nuclear safety;
- competition, public procurement;
- inner safety and order, life and health;
- protection of privacy and personal data, and security of electronic communication, network and information systems;
- protection of financial interests of the European Union;
- functioning of the common market of the European Union, including protection of competition and state aid rules of the European Union.
Please provide us with all possible details of the breach (unlawful activity) that occurred or is going to occur, for example:
- the matter and scope
- date
- time or period
- place
- why and how you think the breach occurred or is going to occur
- involved persons – witnesses
- if anyone from Zentiva is aware of the issue and can provide further information
- how did you become aware of the issue
- was the issue reported already to someone (whom, when, how)
- any other information that could be valuable for the investigation.
We would like to kindly inform you that in case you make a report that does not fall within the Whistleblowers protection scope, or does not contain sufficient details for us to evaluate that the report falls to the scope of the Whistleblowers protection, or that is not accepted by Zentiva Group a.s as stated above, we will inform you and we will not evaluate your report further. As we cannot forward your report which does not fall within the Whistleblowers protection to anyone else (only designate person is in charge), we encourage you to consider the Zentiva Speak Up system for situations where the whistleblowers protection does not apply or where you simply do not wish to use it.
PLEASE NOTE, that this page IS NOT THE ZENTIVA SPEAK UP SYSTEM, you can find the Zentiva Speak Up system here.
F&Q
The Platform (including voice recording)
Zentiva´s internal reporting channel – the Platform - is technically operated by FaceUp Technology s.r.o., via cloud solution. The Privacy Policy of FaceUp Technology s.r.o. is available here.
The report sent through the Platform will only be received and read by the Designated Person in line with the applicable legislation and internal processes. In case you will consent to that, the report may be shared with the investigational team, based on the need-to-know-only principle.
The Platform is user friendly, you only need to select the language on the right hand corner and a legal entity. All relevant information that relate to the report shall be filled to the field „More information“.
When making a voice recording
If you choose the possibility, you can make a voice recording. In case you decide to do so, please be informed that your voice will be altered. Please, follow the instructions provided by the Platform, it is user friendly. (Instead of writing you speak and the recoding is saved in the form).
- Once you add all details (written or via voice recording) in the form, you will be assigned a unique code – the report key.
- Write down your report key and keep it in a safe place. Do not share it with us. In case you share the code with any third person, confidentiality of your report may be endangered.
- Use your report key to check your report for feedback or further questions.
- In case you lose the report key, you will have to fill in the form again to get a new report key. In such a case, please inform us in the text field, that you are following up an already raised concern (you do not have to fill in all details again, but please give us some information regarding the topic of the already raised concern.
We are obliged to provide you with the acknowledgment receipt and related feedback. This information you can find only in the Platform, using your report key.
If you want to be informed automatically about any changes related to your concern, you can fill in the e-mail address in the respective field (not in the text field). This e-mail is used only for sending reminders from the Platform, in case anything changes (i.e. you will NOT receive any update information or questions through on this email). Please note that such a reminders will be sent from NNTB <info@nntb.cz >.
The link you receive within such an email will redirect you to the main landing page of the Platform, where you must select the “My Organisation” field and enter the access code u5xnbg6671. Only then you will return to the page that requires you to enter the report key.
The page where you insert the report key can be accessed via the link on this page as well by clicking on the "Check a Report" button on the left.
In case you make the report through the dedicated email of the Dedicated person set above, only the Dedicated person(s) will receive it and will be able to read it. In case you will consent to that, the report may be shared with the investigational team, based on the need-to-know-only principle. You will receive the receipt and further information solely as a reply to the email address used to send the report to us. During the communication, you will be requested to declare whether you are making a whistleblow-protection report, please note that if you declare the report to be “not whistleblowing”, the whistleblow protection will not be granted.
In case of email report, please DO NOT send a copy of the email to anyone else.
In case you make the report through a telephone call or other distant communication mean or in person, you will be communicating only with the Dedicated person set above and only the Dedicated person(s) will deal with the report. In case you will consent to that, the report may be shared with the investigational team, based on the need-to-know-only principle. During the communication, you will be requested to provide us with the email address to which only you will then receive the receipt and further information. During the communication, you will be requested to declare whether you are making a whistleblowing report, please note that if you declare the report to be “not whistleblowing”, the whistleblow-protection will not be granted.