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Turkey is required by the international and EU instruments and domestic law to address the issue of whistle-blowing and the protection of whistle-blowers. The purpose of this paper is to analyse Turkish legislation which is applicable to work-related whistle-blowing, the conflict between the worker’s right to “blow the whistle” and the obligation to loyalty and confidentiality. The consequences of groundless or deliberate false disclosures are considered. Comparisons are made with international conventions, the COE Recommendation CM/Rec(2014)7 and the Proposed EU Directive on the Protection of Whistleblowers and ECtHR precedents.

In the first part, this paper reviews the definition of whistle-blowing and whistle-blower. The second part outlines the impact of international and EU Law on Turkish legislation. The third part reviews the Turkish legal framework applicable to whistle-blowing.

Whistle-blowing in the public interest is suggested as a tool to combat corruption worldwide. There is no doubt that some whistle-blowers have been beneficial to society. However without democratic structures to take into account the assessment of the quality of the information, the type of the disclosure and the category of the reporting person, there are downsides to excessive whistle-blowing. Therefore, whistle-blowing should be discussed in the context of democratic societies, and a balanced approach should be adopted to ensure the position of not only whistle-blowers but also the people affected by the reports.

The paper offers new insights into the limits of work-related whistle-blowing within the context of freedom of expression and the right of employees and public officials to petition. The protection of whistle-blowers and the consequences of groundless or deliberate false disclosures under Turkish Law from a comparative perspective are considered.

The purpose of this study is to develop a profile of whistleblowers and to determine whether whistleblowing legislation would encourage those individuals to bring to light some illegal or unethical behaviour that otherwise would remain in the shadows.

Having identified whistleblowing correlation, a survey was carried out in Cyprus of actual whistleblowers and could-have-been whistleblowers.

Males between 46 and55 years of age, regardless of whether they have dependents or hold senior positions in organizations are significantly more likely to blow the whistle. However, could-have-been whistleblowers did not go ahead because they felt that the authorities would not act on their information.

Because of the sensitive nature of the research topic and the fact that only whistleblowers or intended whistleblowers could participate in the study, the sample size is limited as a result. This, in turn, limits both the number of respondents in each category (actual and intended) as well as constrains the statistical analysis that could be carried out on the data.

It remains to be seen whether EU Member States shall implement the European Directive 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union Law, in its entirety by the due date, namely December 2021.

This study provides a literature review of whistleblowing and reports an original survey against the backdrop of the European Directive.

This paper aims to investigate and provide pathways for leveraging the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD’s) Ten Global Principles (TGPs) for countering tax crimes in the EU.

The study is guided by the combination of traditional and innovative research methods drawn from criminal law and justice, public regulatory theory and tax law, based on socio-legal and comparative methodologies.

The research shows that EU has achieved considerable amount of progress when it comes to meeting the TGPs. However, law and practice in EU Member States indicate that there are different legal, human and organisational approaches to fighting tax crimes. The TGPs could be strategically applied to complementing the EU’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD) and other initiatives on Administrative Cooperation.

Although the TGPs appear encompassing, there are opportunities to harness the potency of these principles and to provide more tailored principles that can help engineer sustainable remedies for countering tax crimes in the EU.

The paper critically analyses, through a multidisciplinary approach, the main legal, human and organisational factors influencing the prosecution of tax crimes in the EU Member States.

Realignment and harmonisation of tax enforcement paractices in the EU Member States thus help in the reduction of tax gap resulting from tax offences.

The paper provides novel approaches and findings based on empirical info obtained from face-to-face focus groups with end users and law enforcement agencies in tax enforcement eco-system in ten different EU Member States.

This paper considers whether copyright has a future in an electronic environment. A number of issues face copyright owners in the networked environment, most of them caused by the ease with which materials can be copied. Some relevant examples of legal cases are considered. Some responses to the stresses, in terms of both attitudes and legislation, such as the EU Database Directive and the EU Draft Directive on Copyright, are considered. It is concluded that copyright is unlikely to survive in its present form, and that attempts to strengthen it by means of increasing owner rights could be counterproductive. Innovative thinking and ideas are necessary, together with increased owner‐user co‐operation, if copyright is to survive.

This article explores developments in statutory individual employment rights since the election of the Labour Government in 1997. It also discusses the mechanisms for the adjudication and enforcement of individual employment rights. There have been changes in the institutions and dispute settlement processes and procedures, although I argue that an opportunity for a radical re‐think was missed. There are continuities with Conservative thinking, as well as departures from it. Part of my argument is that policy is being based on a problematic representation of “the problem” of increased exercise of individual rights. There is also a neglect of the inter‐relationship between individual employment rights and collective representation at the workplace. The weakening of individual employment rights under previous Conservative Governments was achieved in part by weakening collective organization. Although the Labour Government has addressed the former by strengthening and expanding individual statutory rights, I argue that achievements are constrained by its seeming ambivalence towards the latter.

The purpose of the study is to show that divergent perceptions among regulators, the regulated and the associated regulatory bodies across multiple jurisdictions regarding the nature and functionality of cryptocurrencies hamper the development of a more comprehensive and coherent regulatory framework in curbing crimes and other related risks associated with cryptocurrencies.

The study has used a descriptive doctrinal legal research method to investigate and understand the insights of existing laws and regulations in four selected jurisdictions concerning cryptocurrencies and how these laws could be further improved and developed to reduce crypto-related crimes. Furthermore, the study has also used a comparative research method to conceptualize the contours of the new legal discourse emerging from cryptocurrencies to adopt and implement a sound regulatory framework.

The study illustrated that divergent regulatory treatment among different jurisdictions might suffocate novel digital innovations such as cryptocurrency. These fragmented regulatory approaches by various jurisdictions question the sustainability of the present national legislation adopted to regulate cryptocurrencies. Looking into other jurisdictional developments in regulating cryptocurrencies, it is apparent that a concerted regulatory approach is needed to minimize the abuse of this innovation.

The study has implications for regulators and policymakers to review the current regulatory framework for regulating cryptocurrencies to prevent regulatory arbitrage. The divergent legislative measures concerning cryptocurrency among different jurisdictions question the sustainability of these legislative initiatives, considering the evolving and borderless nature of cryptocurrency. Therefore, this paper will help regulators to consider the present legislative gaps in establishing a common global regulatory approach in the crypto sphere.

The study contributes to the existing body of literature by examining the regulatory frameworks of four jurisdictions, namely, the USA, Canada, China and the EU, related to cryptocurrencies, with a discussion on the development of cryptocurrencies-related laws among these four jurisdictions and their sustainability in curbing crimes in the Darknet.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether ownership concentration, leverage and demand for equity financing is associated with internal corporate governance quality. The paper focuses on dimensions of governance quality that are related to financial reporting quality.

The authors measure internal governance quality by an indicator variable that takes on higher values depending on whether a company has an audit committee, has a sufficient number of audit committee meetings during the year, has financial expertise on the audit committee, has an internal auditing function, a risk management function, a code of conduct and whistle blower provisions in the code of conduct. The sample consists of 91 Swedish listed companies of which 39 companies had to follow the Swedish Corporate Governance Code. The development of hypotheses is based on agency theory. Ordered logistic regressions are used to test the hypotheses.

The paper finds a strong negative association between leverage and the internal governance quality score for companies that do not have to follow the Corporate Governance Code. The paper also finds a positive association between the governance quality score and dispersed ownership among companies that have to follow the code.

The negative association between leverage and governance quality is opposite to the typical agency theory prediction. A number of other studies have also documented negative or insignificant associations with leverage in related settings. The research suggests there is a demand to develop theories related to leverage and the implementation of governance characteristics beyond the typical agency theory based predictions.

The results raise the question whether lenders more actively directly or indirectly should influence the governance quality of borrowers.

Based on the conjecture that governance quality increases with the number of governance elements, the paper studies a governance score that is built up by several elements of good corporate governance. Furthermore, the authors study a setting dominated by voluntary choices of governance quality, which makes it possible to study supply effects.

This paper examines the role of professional associations, governmental agencies, and international accounting and auditing bodies in promulgating standards to deter and detect fraud, domestically and abroad. Specifically, it focuses on the role played by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), and other national and foreign professional associations, in promulgating auditing standards and procedures to prevent fraud in financial statements and other white‐collar crimes. It also examines several fraud cases and the impact of management and employee fraud on the various business sectors such as insurance, banking, health care, and manufacturing, as well as the role of management, the boards of directors, the audit committees, auditors, and fraud examiners and their liability in the fraud prevention and investigation.

The European Union’s Whistleblower Directive (WBD), or formally the “Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons reporting infringements of Union law” seeks to establish a uniform standard for whistleblowing protection across member state jurisdictions. Considering the international reach of the directive, it inevitably confronts divergent national attitudes towards whistleblowing. This paper aims to examine various cultural attitudes which have contributed to the common understanding of whistleblowing, under the directive.

The rhetoric on whistleblowing from a combination of business and national cultures is examined herein. A focus is cast on the information technology sector, which has traditionally protected trade secrecy over whistleblowing, under the guise of protecting of innovation. Moreover, the juxtaposition of American and German employment culture is testimony to the discrepancy in national narratives.

The WBD is both a symptom and a yardstick of modern employment culture in Europe. There are crucial clashes with trade secrecy which the directive has not resolved as well as an acknowledgement of the paradigm of legal thought which the directive pushes.

By reference to both business and national culture, this paper highlights the heterogenous conception of whistleblowing which the directive aims to reconcile. Whilst a vast amount of literature has covered isolated criticism of the WBD, a wider lens has not been cast to consider the pervasive influence of specific aspects on business culture.

The paper identifies the types of risks disclosed by Italian organisations using integrated reporting (IR). This paper aims to understand the level and features of risk disclosure with the adoption of IR.

The authors use risk classifications already provided in the literature to develop a content analysis of Italian organisations’ integrated reports published.

The content analysis reveals that most of the Italian organisations incorporate many types of risk disclosure into their integrated reports. Organisations use this alternative form of reporting to communicate risk differently from how they disclose risks in traditional annual financial reporting. That is, the study finds that the organisations use their integrated reports to disclose a broader group of risks, related to the environment and society, and do so using narrative and visual representation.

The paper contributes to a narrow stream of research investigating risk disclosure provided through IR, contributing to the understanding of the role of IR in representing an organisational risk.