Code of conduct

EDV Werke is built by people. People full of passion, commitment and determination.This enables us to provide services of the highest quality. Our work determines continuous development and the search for new solutions, but one thing remains unchanged – our values. No matter what demands are placed on us, our activities always remain ethical and transparent. We believe in relationships based on trust and mutual respect. We believe that dealing with integrity promotes a culture that fosters innovation and success for all of us. We remain faithful to our principles and strive to ensure that our actions are beneficial to our employees, associates, contractors and suppliers. By adhering to the Code of Conduct, we put our values into practice.

EDV Werke requests its personnel, subcontractors and suppliers to share the principles which are expressed in the Code of Conduct.

EDV Werke thanks you for being part of our quest.

Jakub Wojewski – Member of the Board of Directors

The purpose

The purpose of this document is to:

  • list core values applied by EDV Werke Deutschland GmbH (“we”, “us”, “our”) and required;
  • from our personnel and our suppliers;
  • increase the quality of services offered by us;
  • ensure the values and principles presented in this document are respected both by us, by our personnel and by our suppliers;
  • help building our professional image and reputation worldwide;
  • ensure satisfaction of our customers.

If you are a member of our personnel or our supplier, we ask you to help us reach the abovementioned purpose by respecting principles described in this document. In case of any doubts regarding the content of this document or any things you would like to report to us, please contact us by email at info@edvwerke.ch or by post:

EDV Werke AG, Mühlegasse 18, 6340 Baar, Switzerland

Applicability and significance

This document is applicable to you and you are required to respect it if you are a member of our personnel (regardless if you are our employee, contractor, self- employed consultant or otherwise) or supplier of ours.

If you are an employee, other personnel member or supplier of ours, you must respect the values and principles presented herein.

We believe that this document includes values and principles which should
be universally and unconditionally accepted and respected. Any violations
of principles included herein will be considered as a sufficient and important reason for us to terminate our legal relationship with you

Compliance with laws

First and foremost, we comply with applicable laws and we expect you to do the same. This includes in particular compliance with:

  • Labor law;
  • Contract law;
  • Criminal law;
  • Unfair competition laws;
  • Intellectual property laws;
  • Anti-money laundering laws;
  • Personal data protection laws;
  • Tax laws;
  • Sanctions and export

Your conduct matters not only within the course of our cooperation but also when you stop your work. Misconducts such like:

  • Driving under the influence;
  • Abuse;
  • Thievery;
  • Harassment;
  • Trolling;

will most probably (if and when legally allowed for us to do so) force us to end our cooperation with you, if and when brought to our attention, even if they are committed with no relation whatsoever to our professional relationship.

Human rights

We function mainly in countries where respect for human rights is deeply rooted in legal system and collective consciousness, and respected for decades. It is something natural and obvious.

However, we expect the same from or business partners, and we do not cooperate with suppliers who, in our reasonable opinion, do not guarantee respect for human rights.

Therefore, we require from our suppliers to:

Privacy and confidentiality

As of May 25th, 2018 General Data Protection Regulation commits us to apply stringent standards of protection of privacy. We process personal data only when entitled to do so, to the extent legally permitted and for the purposes clearly defined to data subjects.

 

We apply adequate organizational and technological security measures in order to ensure confidentiality, accessibility and integrity of personal data processed by us.

 

Not only personal data are meticulously protected by us. We apply the same standards of confidentiality to confidential information of our customers and ours. We provide services for globally recognized corporations, including pharmaceutical and financial ones, to whom confidentiality of information is of a paramount importance.

 

When working with us or for us, you must treat data privacy and confidentiality of information as we do – as something absolutely crucial.

Discrimination, mobbing and employees' rights

Fair treatment of our personnel is something we regard as our moral and legal duty.

 

We strongly believe that our success depends on people who work for us and with us. Best policies and technology will not suffice when people do not apply them and are not motivated to give their best.

 

It is so critical then that you and people around you, who work for us or with us, feel safe and know they are treated fairly. We provide trainings and competitive salary to our employees.

 

Any manifestations of violence, abuse, contempt in our working environment are banned and will be met with our firm response.

 

When you are responsible for making any sort of decisions regarding our personnel, you must comply with all applicable laws and our internal policies (including anti- discrimination and anti-mobbing policies implemented by us) and assess people only based on merit, not any sort of prejudice.

 

If you are our external supplier, we expect the same attitude and responsibility from you in respect to your personnel.

Limitation of environmental impact

It is our belief that the adverse human impact on our environment cannot be any longer denied in good conscience. Not only the scientific expertise, but also our own experience shows how our climate is changing and how challenging these changes have become.

Taking care of our planet is our responsibility. We must apply our best efforts to mitigate our environmental impact. These efforts must be applied both on organizational and personal level. We undertake, and we expect you, to respect following basic rules:

  • sort and recycle waste as much as possible;
  • do not litter;
  • limit food waste;
  • turn of the lightning and electronic devices when no longer needed;
  • use power-saving devices;
  • print only when you really have to, and unless absolutely necessary to print in color, always choose black and white printing;
  • use natural light when reasonably possible;
  • choose public transportation when reasonable;
  • limit your flights;
  • save water;
  • use toilet and kitchen appliances responsibly;
  • given reasonable alternative, do not use substances harmful to environment;
  •  limit use of plastic.

Corporate social responsibility

Our aspirations and our thinking are global, yet we appreciate and value our local environment.

 

We are made of people and for the people, thus we believe that when our local communities will thrive, we will thrive too. Therefore, we want them to take part in our success.

 

We engage in charity, we try to help local orphanages, cooperate with educational facilities, involve the disabled.

 

We try to create a multicultural environment, free from prejudice – not only within our organization, but also within our local communities.

 

We expect the same attitude from you. Involve, your actions matter.

Financial transparency

Each responsible business must take care not only of the people and the environment but also of the numbers. And the numbers must be healthy, true and transparent.

 

We are systematically audited and controlled, both internally – by our audit and controlling departments – as well as externally – by renowned audit firms.

 

We pay our liabilities on time, we always reflect true nature and extent of any financial operation in our books.

 

We pay great attention to any legal and fiscal obligations incumbent upon us. Our finances is the one and only area where we keep our creativity at bay.

 

We require you to do the same.

Equal treatment

As stressed out in Chapter 6 [Discrimination, mobbing and employees’ rights] of this document, we believe in importance of equal treatment of our personnel.

 

The principle of equal treatment must however apply also in any business relations with our customers and our suppliers.

 

Firstly, we treat our customers similarly in similar circumstances. We do not favor one customer at the cost of any other client. We always put everything we got to meet our contractual responsibilities and to make our customers happy.

 

Secondly, we do not exclude any suppliers without important and reasonable cause, such as: bad financial standing, insufficient expertise or insufficient warranties regarding information security.

 

We value the suppliers who already proved reliable and like to source close to us, but if you offer services we need and are assessed as reliable enough, we will always consider your offer, without any kind of prejudice. We will treat you the same way as your competition and we will not use any superficial requirements to block awarding you with an order.

 

As our supplier you can depend on us as a reliable customer who pays on time. To consolidate your financial liquidity we will not expect you to agree to unfavorable payment terms. If not reasonably justified in extraordinary circumstances and allowed by applicable law, we will not expect you to agree on a payment date longer than 30 days from receipt of a valid and correct invoice issued by you.

Fair competition

We have built our position on the market by expertise and effort, not by any sort of unfair conduct. We believe that quality always prevails and is the main, if not sole, reason why our clients want to work with us. We refuse unfair competition. In particular, we do not:

  • share false information about us or our competitors;
  • use any forms of espionage;
  • solicit our competitors’ personnel or customers otherwise as by presenting our offer in legal and fair manner, without use of any illegally obtained information and without violation of any contractual obligations agreed by us;
  • offer products or services we are unable to deliver;
  • enter into any form of agreements aimed at exclusion of any of our competitors from the market;
  • enter into any illegal pricing arrangements;
  • bribe anyone in any shape of form.

We require you to do the same.

Gifts policy

This chapter supplements the preceding one. We do not bribe anyone. We do not believe that gaining unfair advantage by offering personal gain is the way of doing business.

When making any form of gifts, paying for anyone’s food, etc. you must remember that:

  • your gesture must be reasonably and culturally For example: by paying for your guest’s coffee in a restaurant during a business meeting arranged by you.
  • your gesture must not embarrass For example: by making her/him feel (s)he owes you something in return or by offending her/him.
  • your gesture must be modest. For example: you can offer a coffee in a restaurant when you want to talk business, but you cannot offer an expensive bottle of wine, unless it accompanies a larger business meal priorly agreed on a corporate level and reasonably justified by circumstances.

You must always remember that our customers usually have their own gifting policies which may vary from ours and we are committed to respect them. Therefore, each time you intend to make a gift, you must make sure it complies with our policies and the policies imposed on us by our client.

You must never offer any personal gain to any public officer as you would most likely commit a crime.

If you are our supplier you must comply with the foregoing principles and remember that we do not expect any gifts from you and we will not grant you any form of business advantage in return.

Avoiding conflicting interests

Our organization is committed to act in the best interests. To ensure that we maintain the highest ethical standards, we require all members of our organization to avoid any conflicts of interest that could compromise our integrity or the integrity of our employees, associates, contractors and suppliers.

A conflict of interest may arise when the interests of our organization or our clients are not aligned with the personal interests of an individual. This can include financial interests, personal relationships, or other factors that could influence decision-making.

To avoid conflicts of interest, we require all members of our organization to:

  • Disclose any potential conflicts of interest to their supervisor or manager.
  • Recuse themselves from any decisions or activities that could create a conflict
    of interest.
  • Act in the best interests of our clients and stakeholders at all times.

By following these guidelines, we can ensure that our organization maintains the highest ethical standards and acts in the best interests of our employees, associates, contractors and supplier.

Decency

As may it sound like a cliché, we require overall decency from you.

You should treat your employees, coworkers, subordinates, supervisors, customers and anyone else with basic human decency.

Each time you work with us or for us, you must remember that your actions and overall attitude reflect on us. We want to be associated with professionalism, reliability, transparency and basic human kindness which should accompany any doings of ours and yours.

You should remember that you work with people just like you and they are affected by your actions. Try to make their lives better, or just easier, when working with them.

Be a person you would like to work with.

Dates

Last reviewed: December 2023

In force from: January 2024