The Maruha Nichiro Group has established a compliance program as a foundation for practicing sustainable management at the organization level and by all officers and employees. We recognize that compliance requires that every employee not only abide by laws and regulations, but also put into practice the Group Philosophy and follow the Group Code of Conduct at all times.
Compliance Framework
To promote compliance, the Group has established the Maruha Nichiro Group Compliance Committee with the goal of early detection and prevention of any violations of laws or regulations as well as penetration of compliance awareness.
The Compliance Committee has established a secretariat within the Legal Affairs & Risk Management Department, where it checks the appropriateness of operations within the Group based on changes in the social environment, surveys of public institutions and past cases of legal violations or scandals inside and outside of the Group. It provides support to promptly rectify any deficiencies.
Compliance Framework
(As of Apr 1, 2023)
Whistleblowing System
The Maruha Nichiro Group has introduced a whistleblowing system to enhance its capacity for self correction, and has reviewed its operation system in accordance with the revised Whistleblower Protection Act effective June 1, 2022. There are two internal and external points of contact to receive inquiries and reports from employees. All employees working in the Maruha Nichiro Group, including employees on loan, contract workers and temporary employees, officers, and employees who have retired within the past year, can directly access these contact points via telephone, e-mail or standard mail without going through their supervisor. At the request of the whistleblower, whistleblowing reports made to an external legal office will be communicated to the Maruha Nichiro Corporation's whistleblower response personnel (Legal Affairs & Risk Management Department) without using the whistleblower's name, which will confirm the facts of the matter while cooperating with other relevant department and the whistleblower response personnel of the relevant company.
We also strive to protect whistleblowers by accepting anonymous notifications and forbid departments inside the company from looking for the whistleblower when confirming the facts of the matter.
In addition, the contact information for the whistleblower contact is provided in the Philosophy Book and on the intranet and other media accessible to Group employees to ensure that all employees know where to turn to when necessary. In FY2022, there were 16 whistleblower reports. However, none of the reports were determined to involve human rights violations, environmental pollution, or significant impacts on socially accepted practices.
Number of Whistleblower Reports
Group Philosophy Training
Group Philosophy Training is a training program developed based on our experience that the Group Philosophy was not resonating with employees following the pesticide contamination incident at AQLI Foods. Regarding the mission and responsibility of the Maruha Nichiro Group included in the Group Philosophy, the training aims to share mutual awareness about the role that employees should play in implementing the Group Philosophy in their everyday jobs using direct communication between executive management and employees.
This group training program, which began in 2014, has been gradually rolled out to all employees of Group companies in Japan and all business sites of Maruha Nichiro Corporation are being led by officers of the Company.
In FY2021, due to the impact of COVID-19, we decided not to conduct group training for all employees, but instead conducted Group Philosophy training for new and mid-career employees of the Company and domestic Group who had not yet attended Group Philosophy training, using an online format.
