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Unlawful SOX Helplines

By Jonathan Armstrong
August 30, 2005

The international corporate governance community has been greatly troubled in the last several weeks by the reporting of decisions from France and Germany that have been said to make the running of SOX helplines unlawful in Europe. Much of the furor has been caused by mistranslations of the decisions in both of these countries, and a misunderstanding of the ability of the authorities in one country in Europe to make cross-border rulings. As we will see, the decisions taken in France and Germany affect only those two countries and are not in themselves of pan-European effect. Problems do however remain in particular for U.S. corporations that run whistleblower hotlines in Europe.

France

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