The Court of Justice of the European Union has in Case C-150/23 European Commission v Grand Duchy of Luxembourg: for having transposed Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law not on 17 December 2021--as it should have done--but on 17 May 2023, Luxembourg will have to pay a lump-sum fine of €375,000.

Four other countries have also been condemned for the same reason. Germany (C-149/23 Commission/Germany) will have to pay a lump-sum fine of €34m, the Czech Republic (C-152/23 Commission/Czech Republic) €2.3m and Hungary (C-155/23 Commission/Hungary) €1.75m. Estonia (C-154/23 Commission/Estonia), which has not yet transposed the European legislation, has been ordered to pay a lump-sum fine of €500,000 and a daily penalty payment of €1,500.

In these actions brought by the European Commission, the CJEU found that the member states concerned had “failed to fulfil their obligations” under the whistleblowers directive “by failing to adopt the provisions necessary to comply with the whistleblowers directive and, in any event, by failing to communicate those provisions to the commission.” Stressing “the importance of the transposition of that directive in view of the high level of protection it affords to whistleblowers who report a breach of EU law,” the court ruled in favour of the commission, rejecting the arguments put forward by the member states concerned.

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