55
Anti-corruption
AAK has signed the UN Global Compact committing
the company to establish anti-corruption measures.
Anti-corruption is addressed in our Code of Conduct,
the Supplier Code of Conduct, the Code of Conduct for
Suppliers of Raw Materials, and the Code of Conduct
for Agents and Distributors. This means that our
anti-corruption policies are communicated to our Board
and Executive Committee, employees, suppliers, and
an additional 1,300 partners in the business.
As described under Our Suppliers, we now have
strict controls in place related to bribes and corruption,
including an assessment of suppliers based on
Transparency International, audits, and risk analysis/
ratings. While all suppliers must sign our Code, we also
understand the importance of strengthening measures
Labor rights
Labor rights issues are governed by AAK’s Sustain-
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our stand on human rights, freedom of association,
forced labor, child labor, discrimination, working hours,
workplace violence, environment, and anti-corruption.
Giving staff equal and fair treatment is a basic human
right and part of our sustainability policy.
AAK adheres to the ILO Conventions and complies,
as a minumum, with local and international standards
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these requirements.
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high risk of corruption. We had planned to conduct
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for all employees in the area. Unfortunately, this was
postponed due to challenges and is now planned to
be conducted via face-to-face meetings on our various
sites in 2020.
To support this, it is also crucial that we build awareness
and knowledge internally. All relevant personnel
was therefore to take an e-learning course that
explains key terminologies and how to address them,
for example, “acceptance of bribes”, “business with
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interest, nepotism, power misuse, returned favor, and
favoritism.
During 2019, our ambition was that all relevant
personnel should also complete an e-learning course
on competition law, with a test at the end. By the end
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as people working in Sales, Product Management,
Purchasing, and Sourcing & Trading) had completed the
anti-corruption training and 93 percent had completed
the competition law course. Next year, AAK will expand
the scope of relevant employees that are required
to take the courses to include relevant people with
leadership positions.
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for overtime. We are collecting information on basic
salary and renumeration on a local level and, going
forward, AAK will further develop the global HR system
to facilitate pulling in data on Ratios Per Employee on
a global level. 44.3 percent of AAK employees were
covered by a collective bargaining agreement in 2019
but this does not mean that not all employees are
regulated with fair terms and conditions of employment.
Blowing the whistle on misconduct
Additionally, AAK has a whistleblower system to
encourage that violations of laws, human rights or the
AAK Code of Conduct are reported. Every employee
within the AAK Group should without fear of reprisal from
anyone use our whistleblower system. During 2019, we
encountered one case of alleged misconduct through our
whistleblower function. An investigation was made and
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Contributes to: