Compliance
As a leading global steel and technology Group with a combination of materials and processing expertise, voestalpine takes on its customers’ challenges and is mindful of its special responsibility toward its customers, suppliers, and other business partners, as well as its employees and shareholders. In all business activities and decisions, management and employees must therefore comply with all statutory and other external regulations as well as all internal guidelines applicable to voestalpine AG and its Group companies. The voestalpine Group’s understanding of compliance goes beyond these requirements.
Employees are expected to conduct themselves in keeping with the Group’s values and the general fundamental values of human behavior. This understanding is documented in the voestalpine AG Code of Conduct, which provides the basis for morally, ethically, and legally sound conduct for all Group employees. The Management Board is expressly and emphatically committed to this Code.
The voestalpine Compliance Management System is based on the pillars of risk analysis/prevention, detection, and processing/reaction. Regarding the first pillar, the compliance organization attaches great importance to familiarizing employees with the external and internal Code of Conduct. Internal training programs include a wide variety of e-learning courses as well as classroom training aimed at target groups and general compliance training.
The Compliance Organization helps management meet its compliance responsibilities, providing the necessary processes and acting as a point of contact for all issues and topics assigned to it. The company has appointed a Group Compliance Officer as well as a compliance officer for each division, for a number of business units, and for larger Group companies.
The compliance organization is responsible for the following areas:
- Antitrust law
- Corruption
- Compliance with capital market regulations
- Fraud (internal incidences of theft, fraud, embezzlement, breach of trust)
- Conflicts of interest
- Special issues assigned to the compliance officers by the voestalpine AG Management Board (e.g., UN or EU sanctions).
Other compliance issues—such as environmental law, taxes, accounting, labor law, protection of employees or data—are not the responsibility of the compliance organization or the compliance officers. Other organizational units are responsible for these compliance issues.
Employees and business partners can report misconduct to various contact persons or by entering the incident in a web-based whistleblower system.