Reliable reporting channels for internal and external stakeholders and the protection of employee whistle-blowers against sanctions are indispensable for effective compliance, because they help ensure that possible misconduct is reported, thoroughly investigated and brought to light.
In order to obtain knowledge of any compliance violations, we provide various ways for internal and external parties to report them. The compliance help desk “Tell us,” the ombudsman and accounting complaints are protected channels that Siemens employees and external stakeholders can use to raise concerns about possible violations, confidentially and if desired, also anonymously.
Employees who report compliance violations at Siemens are protected by a special guideline that prohibits sanctions of any kind when reports are made in good faith. Thus, anyone who reports possible violations in good faith may not be disadvantaged in any way at Siemens.
Siemens employees and managers, customers, suppliers and other business partners, as well as all other external stakeholders of Siemens can use the compliance help desk “Tell us” to report violations of the Siemens Business Conduct Guidelines at any time of the day or night, anywhere in the world, in a safe, confidential and if desired, anonymous manner.
The ombudsman is an impartial instance to which Siemens employees and third parties can report their observations of improper business practices in the company and do so in a confidential and also anonymous manner.
In order to uncover violations in the area of accounting and auditing, Siemens has implemented a process for dealing with accounting complaints. This process is based on the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. According to Section 301 of this legislation, the Audit Committee must set up a process to ensure that employees and third parties can submit accounting complaints anonymously and that such complaints are handled properly. We have created and announced a company-wide process by which all accounting complaints go to the Chief Compliance Officer, who initiates an investigation by the company’s internal auditors and reports to the Audit Committee of the Supervisory Board.
Any employee can file a personal complaint or report circumstances that suggest a violation of the Business Conduct Guidelines to his or her supervising manager, to the Personnel Director or another person or department designated for that purpose, or to the Works Council. Such reports will be thoroughly investigated and action will be taken as appropriate. All documents will be kept confidential. Retribution of any kind will not be tolerated. Employees are urged to first make use of internal mediation opportunities.
All managers are obligated to continuously monitor the business activities in their respective areas of responsibility. In the course of such controls, certain projects are checked on a sample basis for compliance with anti-trust and anti-corruption laws.
To enhance the efficiency of the compliance program, Siemens has introduced compliance control regulations that are applicable throughout the company. These regulations cover both anti-corruption controls and anti-trust controls. The compliance control regulations are an integral element of the Siemens risk management system.
The systems operated by the compliance organization (such as the Business Partner Tool or the help desk functions) are continually evaluated in order to detect developments at an early stage and to monitor their functional effectiveness and breadth of use within the company through plausibility tests and random sampling.
Siemens uses risk-based internal audits conducted at regular intervals to check whether the compliance system is being correctly implemented throughout the company in all units. Where potential for improvement is identified, this information is forwarded to the compliance organization and flows, along with the results of the remediation team’s monitoring, into strategy and system development.
The Compliance Audit department, which reports to Corporate Internal Audit, regularly audits the implementation of the compliance control regulations, which were revised in December 2010.
As part of our compliance program, we have created a special process and provided the necessary resources for investigating possible compliance violations. Reports of possible misconduct submitted to the company through the compliance help desk “Tell us,” the ombudsman, or government authorities are investigated under the centralized authority and responsibility of the Chief Counsel Compliance (CCC).
The Compliance Investigations department or Internal Audit leads the investigation, with legal support provided by the lawyers of the Compliance Legal department. The investigation process proceeds from the assumption of innocence and is conducted with regard to the co-determination rights of the Works Council and data protection.
Completed investigations are reviewed by a different group of specialists from the compliance organization. (You can find more on the topic of remediation in the chapter "Respond“. In addition, compliance investigations are an important source of information for the compliance risk analysis.
The compliance organization has issued guidelines applicable to all units of the company. These guidelines prohibit investigations that are conducted “at any cost”, and stipulate clear rules to ensure the fair and respectful treatment of employees in connection with investigations.
2011-Mar-10 | Author