Whistleblower rights are on the rise, it seems. In February 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights overturned an earlier criminal conviction of Raphaël Halet, one of the LuxLeaks whistleblowers that disclosed tax avoidance practices at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Meanwhile in France, the Mediator drug case still drags on after more than a decade. Pharmaceutical firm Servier recently launched an appeal against convictions it was handed in 2021 for concealing the risks of the Mediator weight-loss pill. Irène Frachon, the doctor that discovered the drug’s potentially fatal side effects, still maintains her courageous whistleblowing efforts.
