Prioritizing responsibility and ethics beyond compliance

Code of Ethics and Business Conduct

Nexans Code of Ethics and Business Conduct sets out the ethics rules and values for Nexans’ employees and business partners to comply with.

Whistleblowing: Ethics alert system

Any violation of the Code of Ethics and Business Conduct can be reported through the whistleblowing system. Nexans Ethics alert system is available to all: employees, clients, suppliers or any other third party. To access it, click on the link on the right column.

Nexans Ethics Compliance Program

Our Ethics Compliance Program defines actions to prevent, detect and manage ethical risks to which the Group is exposed in the conduct of its activities around the world.

It is based on the Group’s main ethics risk mapping which is regularly updated.

Every year a specific set of actions is defined and deployed throughout the Group to reinforce or update prevention to new legal obligations or where a need has been identified: subjects of mandatory trainings for the year are defined according thereto, with the signing of a compliance certificate and statement of conflict of interests, policies of prevention processes are updated etc. the overall purpose of this annual plan being efficiency, by the continuous adjustment of our actions to prevent, detect and monitor the actual risks to which the Group is exposed in the conduct of its activities.

Nexans Compliance Team

Under the supervision of the Group Secretary General, over 20 persons are involved in the management of the key actions of Nexans Ethics Compliance Program.

• The Group Ethics Compliance Program Officer is responsible to propose to the Executive Committee, the actions to prevent, detect and handle ethics issues and support the operational managers in implementing the program. He/she reports to the Account and audit Committee at least once a year and has a dotted line of report to the CEO.
• The Group Ethics Correspondent who receives and processes reports of violations. 
• The Group Data Protection Officer who establishes risks and procedures for the management of personal data within the Group.
• The internal audit and internal control department which conducts every year an audit on the effective deployment of the annual action plan in addition to its on-site audits.
• A network of country lawyers who act as local Compliance Program Officers.
• The Group HR who is involved in the enrolment of employees exposed to ethical risks in mandatory trainings, the conduct of integrity checks when hiring key managers in high risk countries.

Targeted global and local actions

Each year, we establish a specific action plan including, for example, signing the Ethics Code compliance certificate, advanced training programs and raising awareness about changes in competition rules. Annual manager reviews and internal audit teams monitor the implementation of these policies.