2017 Yearly Overview | Prysmian Group

63 and resources more adequately allocated to develop a stronger system, turning the whole process into an opportunity that gives us a competitive advantage. This means we become more agile in responding to new regulatory changes, thus remaining one step ahead of competitors, while building awareness around compliance culture to help strengthen the company’s reputation. Reducing penalties and fines imposed by authorities helps to instill confidence in employees, partners and all stakeholders. Nespoli points out that “promoting compliant and ethical conduct and behaviour will positively influence the business, and will further strengthen our ethical DNA, involving everybody in a shared control system”. Compliance in fact is not just an economic issue as it concerns the Group’s most valuable asset – its reputation. Preserving it is in the interest of each and every person, and of the company as a whole. “Integrity is an ever-present concept we intend to expand it by developing and sharing a new compliance ecosystem.” Alessandro Nespoli Chief Compliance Officer Sharing and spreading the ethics dna The Compliance arm of Prysmian, in co-operation with SDA Bocconi and the Group Academy, launched the ‘Integrity First’ professional training programme in July 2017, with a focus on anti-bribery and anti-trust issues. Over the six planned editions, training will involve around 200 sales managers from different corporate regions. The Digital Academy, with online courses focused on anti-bribery and anti-trust issues for Italian-affiliated companies, has also been recently launched. ‘Integrity First’ will help employees to understand and embrace the need for high ethical standards in connection to Group strategy. The ultimate goal is to help distinguish legal from ethical issues and, while considering country differences in legal frameworks, have all Prysmian people follow a universal ethical code of conduct, wherever they may be. The whistleblowing programme As part of its commitment to ethical and legal behaviour, in 2017 Prysmian invited all the Group's stakeholders to report any real or apparent violations of the law, the Code of Ethics or ethical standards, so that they can be examined and dealt with appropriately. In order to meet this requirement and in order to create the necessary conditions of confidentiality, security and ease of reporting, Prysmian has since adopted a Whistleblowing Policy, offering all – employees and non-employees – the possibility of anonymously reporting on and offline anything related to incorrect behaviour and alleged illicit activities that might occur within the organisation. This process uses two channels for report collection – dedicated telephone lines and a web portal – that are both managed by independent operators and available in the 26 languages used by the Group. The system of values adopted by Prysmian guides the conduct of individuals both inside and outside the company, and is documented in the Code of Ethics. A Whistleblowing Committee has also been established, which evaluates the reports, conducts specific investigations and, if necessary, takes appropriate action.