Compliance Structure
The Takasago Group believes that compliance is one of its top priority management issues and strives to continuously improve its compliance system while ensuring fair and proper business activities and effective corporate governance.
Compliance Hotline
The Takasago Group has a compliance hotline that enables all employees and other stakeholders such as suppliers and customers to report any compliance issues through the hotline and all of the information submitted to the hotline will be treated in the strictest confidence. Posters advertising the hotline have been displayed at offices and factories to ensure that our stakeholders know how to report any issues they discover. In 2021, the number of consultations was 4 cases in entire the Group.
Approach to Anti-Bribery
The Takasago Group understands that corporate bribery is an impediment to fair competition and a serious threat to corporate credibility. Based on this, we have established The Takasago Group Anti-Bribery Policy to ensure fair and ethical business activities by preventing bribery involving the employees or officers of TheTakasago Group companies, ensuring compliance with the bribery laws and regulations of the countries and regions where we do business prohibiting bribery without exception.
The Takasago Group Anti-Bribery Policy stipulates the implementation of education and training and the establishment of a consultation and reporting system. In 2021, 351 employees participated in the training, which is 96% of the number of employees applies to the training.
Approach to Eliminating Organized Crime
Our position against organized crime is clearly stated in our Charter of Corporate Behavior and Code of Conduct as well as The Takasago Group Supplier Code of Conduct. We work to eliminate organized crime by encouraging the entire group and also our supply chain. Furthermore, in response to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s policy of eliminating organized crime groups, we have included a clause regarding the elimination of organized crime into our basic transaction contracts.
Ethical Audits
To operate our business sustainably, we need to understand our own business practices, enhance our business ethics and ensure that we comply with the principles of social responsibility. Our group utilizes SMETA* to conduct ethical audits by thirdparty organizations at our own manufacture sites. Through SMETA, we properly confirm compliance of our sites and strive to improve in accordance with audit results and findings.
The SMETA checks the following items according to the ETI Base Code established by the International Labour Organization.
[Major audit issues in SMETA]
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In FY2021, Takasago Group conducted SMETA at 7 manufacture sites. We have a plan to receive SMETA regularly across the globe, and have conducted at all our manufacture sites (100%) over the five-year period from FY 2017 to FY 2021. All issues found in these audits have been corrected and addressed. We will continue to implement the SMETA to build an ethical corporate culture.
* SMETA(Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit) is Sedex’s social auditing methodology, and the most widely used social audit in the world. SMETA is to assess a site based on 4 pillars: labour, health and safety, environment, and business ethics.
Tax Compliance Initiatives
The Takasago Group recognizes that the payment of taxes is one of the most basic and important social responsibilities that companies must fulfill, and we believe that proper tax payment plays an important role in the development of the countries and regions where we do business.
- We do not engage in tax planning or use tax havens to avoid taxes, and we comply with the laws and regulations of each country and region and the guidelines set forth by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
- We have established a scheme to enhance tax compliance and reduce tax risks by securing and training appropriate human resources while strengthening cooperation with external experts and other departments. In addition, we comply with laws and regulations and strengthen risk management by sharing the information about legal judgements and lawsuits that the tax authorities of various countries and regions provide.
- We build and maintain good relationships with tax authorities in each country and region and respond to their requests in good faith. In addition, we strive to ensure transparency and trust in the tax authorities of each country and region by appropriately disclosing the information required by applicable laws and regulations.