Expanded Japanese Whistleblowing Rules Reach Small & Medium Business

Expanded Japanese whistleblowing rules are among the latest to come into effect as part of a broad trend of increasing regulatory requirements for incident reporting across the globe.

Previously in effect for large organizations, the expanded Whistleblower Protection Act requires smaller companies operating in Japan to implement systems that enable and protect reporters of misconduct. The updated regulation went into effect on June 1, 2022.

Among the main requirements are the designation of personnel to receive and investigate incident reports, and the establishment of an internal system to administer the process, according to a thorough overview from the blog of global law firm Baker McKenzie. For organizations with 300 or fewer employees, the requirement for an internal system are reduced to "make efforts."