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ePaper created 2015-12-01, 11:32:17 | version 1.43.00
25akzente 2/15 How important are compliance and transpar- ency for a global company like Daimler? Both are very important, and their impor tance is increasing. Of course, our main aim is to provide our customers with excellent products. Safe and stylish cars are the hall- mark of our brand. But how a company con- ducts itself in the marketplace is equally im- portant in terms of its image. We know that misconduct can have economic consequences. So we aim to do business ethically and main- tain decent standards of conduct. Why is transparency becoming more important? Societies are becoming more sensitive to this issue, not only since the financial crisis. In many countries, the law has changed and more openness and stricter controls are now required. The new media play a key role in this context because people now have easier and faster access to information. If a com- pany doesn’t operate ethically, word gets around very quickly. Have there been any cases of this at Daimler? Yes, there have been incidents of rule-breaking and corruption at Daimler. In 2010, we were called to account by the US financial regulator and the US Department of Justice and were fined 185 million dollars. In addition, former FBI Director Louis Freeh was appointed as an independent corporate com- pliance monitor for three years. We learned from this experience. What has been your greatest challenge to date? Explaining compliance and restoring our workforce’s faith in the concept across the company. Incidentally, we prefer to use the term ‘integrity’. Compliance simply means keeping to the rules, whereas we focus more on the values that should guide our conduct, such as fairness and decency in our cooper- ation with others. For us, it’s about having a compass to guide our employees, even in dif- ficult situations. And that’s a huge undertak- ing. For example, we have developed a new transparent code of conduct and streamlined all our corporate rules. Aren’t compliance officers simply there for show? That would simply be about creating the right image. But that’s not how we do busi- ness. And anyway, in our case, that would be too little, too late. At Daimler, compliance is not there for show. It’s an important element of our corporate agenda. Since we were called to account, our watchword has been: let’s step up – if we don’t, who will? Are these values practised throughout the com- pany? We have made major progress, but there’s always room for improvement. Be- cause we involved the workforce in many of the innovations, our employees now identify with our integrity rules, so they are achieving a high level of compliance. How much of a problem is corruption at Daimler? There are very few cases of suspected corruption, and most of those which do arise prove to be unfounded. But that doesn’t make us permanently immune. On the contrary, we have an ongoing responsibility to tackle cor- ruption, especially in countries where it is more widespread than it is here. In these countries, we have to provide our employees with guidelines explaining the forms of con- duct that they should adopt to rule out any hint of misconduct on their part. On the other hand, we don’t want comprehensive surveil- lance – we’re not a police state. Where do the limits to transparency lie, from your perspective? In data protection and privacy. So we maintain statistics about breaches but we don’t name names: the data are anonymised. We don’t simply take action against specific individuals. We follow clear rules of proce dure that comply with fundamental rights. This ensures that breaches are investigated in an effective and transparent manner. For ex- ample, we only look at an employee’s emails if there is a well-founded suspicion of mis- conduct. Personal rights are a sensitive issue and should not be confused with a misguided concept of transparency. Interview: Friederike Bauer ‘Do business ethically and honestly’ Christine Hohmann-Dennhardt has been a member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG since February 2011, with responsibility for Integrity and Legal Affairs. A doctor of law, politician and former judge at the German Federal Constitutional Court, she thus holds an unusual position in Germany’s corporate world. Christine Hohmann-Dennhardt, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG photo:DaimlerAG-GlobalCommunicationsMercedes-Benz(page25)