The EY Virtual Compliance Officer

Yes. EY Virtual Compliance Officer was specifically designed to help organizations satisfy the requirements of the EU Whistleblowing Directive and its transposition to local legislation in a simple and accessible way.

Depending on the industry your company operates in, the Directive might apply even to companies employing less than 50 workers. This concerns the financial sector in particular; however, each EU Member State can decide to extend the personal scope of its local legislation to include other legal entities, based on their business activities and associated risks, and especially environmental and public health risks.

Implementation of whistleblowing channel is worth considering regardless of the EU Whistleblowing Directive. Having one significantly increases your chances to detect misconduct and limit potential losses resulting thereof.

Having a whistleblowing channel can help your organization gain competitive advantage. It is often expected or required by certain business partners.

Yes. EY Virtual Compliance Officer allows for direct communication through a confidential whistleblowing channel which is available 24/7 for employees and individuals from outside the organization. Whistleblowers who want to remain anonymous receive a unique token code allowing for further communication. This allows the organization to communicate with anonymous whistleblower, ask questions, get additional information about the reported misconduct, send or receive documents and satisfy the EU Whistleblowing Directive requirements to give feedback to the reporting person.

This is one of the main requirements of the EU Whistleblowing Directive. Moreover, having such a channel increases a whistleblower’s trust in the company, making it more likely they will choose to report a misconduct through company’s internal channel and not opt for external reporting to authorities or a public disclosure (to which they are entitled to, based on the Directive). This will allow the organization to react faster to the reported misconduct and limit potential financial and reputational repercussions.

Yes. EY Forensics and Integrity Services provides a wide range of services including compliance risk assessment, the implementation of compliance management systems, analysis of reported misconducts and comprehensive support during internal investigations (including process analysis, interviews, forensics data analysis, IT forensics – e-Discovery, open source intelligence, etc.)

Yes. It is possible as EY Virtual Compliance Officer is composed of independent modules. Implementing the smart document repository allows your organization to share documents (such as internal regulations and guidelines) and manage the collection of affirmations, confirming that employees and business partners are acquainted with these documents.

EY’s Forensics and Integrity Services team has a vast experience in auditing compliance management systems. Depending on your needs, we can help you with risk identification and assessment, updating your procedures, assisting in training and preparing related communications.

The amount of time required to implement the EY Virtual Compliance Officer depends on the number of modifications requested by your organization, the number of users and other company-specific factors. Typical implementation takes 5-10 working days. Implementation is free of charge and there are no other costs besides the EY Virtual Compliance Officer subscription.

Yes. EY Virtual Compliance Officer can be customized to the needs of your organization, both in terms of misconduct reporting processes, and in terms of graphics and other visual elements. For example, you can modify the contents of the misconduct reporting form so that it will better suit your key risks and company’s structure. You will be also able to change graphics and logos on the landing page.

The cost of EY Virtual Compliance Officer depends on the number of requested modifications, the number of active language versions (from the 13 languages versions currently available), the number of separate whistleblowing channels (in case of capital groups) and other individual arrangements.

The full price is prepared specifically for each client. It is always preceded with a demonstration meeting.

In such cases, EY Forensics and Integrity Services can help with initial assessment of the misconduct report, deciding on further actions as well as provide comprehensive support during internal investigations (including process analysis, interviews, forensics data analysis, IT forensics – e-Discovery, etc.).

By choosing EY Virtual Compliance Officer, you not only get an effective whistleblowing platform created by EY professionals based on global quality and security standards, but you also gain access to the knowledge and support of the biggest and most experienced forensics and compliance team in Europe. EY Forensics has unique competencies and experience in compliance and internal audit engagements across the whole region.