Business Ethics: Conducting Business Fairly
ICL’s approach is to comply with all provisions of the law, statutes, regulations, treaties, instructions and permits in all areas of its operations. On top of this compliance approach, ICL has taken on itself additional standards and internal procedures that line up with its values, principles and norms of behavior.
Integrity, fairness and prevention of bribery and corruption are central values of ICL’s organizational culture
As a leading global company, ICL is careful to comply with applicable laws and regulations in all locations where it does business. For this reason, the company’s compliance policies and programs are characterized by a high standard of caution, adopting heightened European and American standards. This includes preventing bribery and corruption, harassment, fraud, and violations in trade compliance, antitrust, securities, money laundering, and privacy laws, such as the GDPR.
ICL is implementing its Compliance Code with multiple steps and actions throughout the company. These include a company-wide Compliance Week done in May of 2019 (read more below), establishing a Global Code of Ethics Committee and more.
ICL’s Global Ethics Committee includes 12 employees and ICL executives around the world. Committee members discuss fundamental issues in ethics and compliance, influence and take an active role in outlining activities to implement the code of ethics and to build plans to improve corporate governance and ethics towards all stakeholders in the company. ICL transparently communicates to all global employees the issues raised in the committee meetings, and the consequent decisions and guidance. See two examples of these communications here and here.
ICL Global Compliance Week
Raising awareness and focusing on ICL’s commitment to compliance, were the basis for the ICL Global Compliance Week. In May of 2019 and for the first time, ICL held a compliance week across its main operations around the world. This week included multiple events and activities in Israel, Europe, the Americas and China. The highlights of the program included: Roundtable discussions for managers regarding compliance issues; Antitrust on-site live training; Online compliance trivia quiz for all ICL employees with computer access; “Escape rooms” with compliance red flags and more. The compliance week also included an anti-sexual harassment demonstration with an interactive discussion with the audience, cybersecurity and data privacy awareness training, as well as Environmental liability live training.
ICL’s Anti-Harassment and Anti-Discrimination Policy
ICL has zero tolerance for harassment of any kind or discrimination of any form in the workplace. ICL prohibits harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation (i.e. LGBTQ), national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic of an individual. ICL strictly complies with the anti-harassment laws in all countries and territories it operates.
Managers and supervisors are required to take an active and leading role in the prevention of harassment and retaliation.
Proactive measures:
- Promote a gender/minority inclusive environment.
- Integration of employees with disabilities.
- Whistleblower procedure on discrimination and harassment issues.
- Awareness training to prevent discrimination and/or harassment.
ICL will not retaliate against any employee who reports a concern in good faith, regardless of the outcome of the investigation.
