“Whistle Blowing” Regulation and Accounting Standards Enforcement in Germany and Europe-An Economic Perspective

Many countries regard whistle blowing by employees as a way to assure ethical conduct of firms and as a result various statutory rules have been enacted in order to fortify that behavior, such as the two provisions of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) enacted in the US. The article takes a neo-institutional economics perspective on the phenomenon of whistle blowing and analyzes in what sense a statutory fortification is indeed legitimate. Contrasting, sophisticated regulatory models of the US, the UK and Germany are critically discussed, and an appropriate statutory approach is suggested that utilizes whistle blowing particularly to enhance the regulation of accounting standards enforcement in Germany and Europe.