Amnesty programme

An amnesty programme – sometimes called an internal leniency or self-disclosure programme – is a voluntary compliance instrument. Within a clearly defined window, the company invites employees to disclose their own involvement in legal or policy violations and, in return, promises to refrain from specific sanctions: usually dismissal, formal warnings and internal claims for damages. The purpose is to obtain reliable information quickly during an internal investigation, establish the full facts and stop the misconduct. The instrument became widely known through large corporate investigations. German law provides no statutory basis for it; it rests entirely on the employer's freedom to shape its own contractual and disciplinary decisions.

The reach of such a promise is limited: a company can only waive what belongs to it. It cannot rule out criminal prosecution – public prosecutors investigate offences subject to mandatory prosecution regardless of the company's wishes – nor can it stop regulatory or administrative-fine proceedings. Genuine statutory amnesty exists only in specific areas, such as the self-disclosure that removes criminal liability for tax evasion (section 371 of the German Fiscal Code, AO) or the antitrust leniency programme (sections 81h et seq. of the German Competition Act, GWB). An internal programme does not replace these regimes; it operates alongside them. The privilege against self-incrimination also remains intact: employees must answer questions about their own area of responsibility, but they cannot be compelled to incriminate themselves criminally, and whether such statements may later be used in criminal proceedings remains legally contested.

In practice, the boundary with whistleblower protection matters. The German Whistleblower Protection Act (HinSchG) shields reporting persons from retaliation (section 36 HinSchG), but it does not release them from responsibility for their own wrongdoing. A person who discloses their own involvement may simultaneously qualify as a reporting person; the employer must then show that any adverse measure is based on that person's own violation and not on the report, because section 36(2) HinSchG presumes detriment following a report to be retaliation. A robust amnesty programme therefore needs written conditions applied equally to everyone: a defined window, a duty of complete disclosure and cooperation, explicit exclusions (for instance for instigators or top management) and GDPR-compliant documentation. Where the programme is embedded in a compliance policy, works council co-determination rights must be examined in advance.