Oecd legal Instruments

VI.D.4. Where stakeholders participate in the corporate governance process, they should have 
access to relevant, sufficient and reliable information on a timely and regular basis. 
Where laws and practice of corporate governance frameworks provide for participation by stakeholders, it is 
important that stakeholders have access to information necessary to fulfil their responsibilities. 
VI.D.5. Stakeholders, including individual workers and their representative bodies, should be able 
to freely communicate their concerns about illegal or unethical practices to the board and/or to the 
competent public authorities, and their rights should not be compromised for doing this. 
Unethical and illegal practices by corporate officers may not only violate the rights of stakeholders but also 
be detrimental to the company in terms of reputational effects. It is therefore important for companies to 
OECD/LEGAL/0413
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establish a confidential whistleblowing policy with procedures and safe-harbours for complaints by workers, 
either personally or through their representative bodies, and others outside the company, concerning illegal 
and unethical behaviour. The board should be encouraged to protect these individuals and representative 
bodies and to give them confidential direct access to someone independent on the board, often a member 
of an audit or an ethics committee. Some companies have established an ombudsman to deal with 
complaints. Relevant authorities have also established confidential phone and e-mail facilities to receive 
complaints. While in certain jurisdictions representative workforce bodies undertake the tasks of conveying 
concerns to the company, individual workers should not be precluded from, or be less protected, when acting 
alone. In the absence of timely remedial action or in the face of reasonable risk of negative action to a 
complaint regarding contravention of the law, workers are encouraged to report their bona fide complaint to 
the competent authorities. Many jurisdictions also provide for the possibility to bring cases of alleged 
violations of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises to the relevant National Contact Point. The 
company should refrain from discriminatory or disciplinary actions against such workers or bodies.