Patria follows ethical principles strictly and complies with industry standards as part of responsible defence-equipment trade
Transparency International UK has published its survey on the anti-corruption activities of companies in the defence industry and on how they publicly report on their operations. According to the study, two-thirds of the surveyed companies have not reported sufficiently on these issues. These companies include companies from the world’s ten largest defence equipment manufacturing countries, including the United States, Russia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and China, whose output amounts to some 90 per cent of the world’s defence equipment trade. According to the study, Patria is also categorised as an organisation that does not provide a sufficient amount of information on its anti-corruption activities via public channels. For Patria, the sources used were the ethical code and purchasing policy published on the company’s website.
It is noteworthy that only a quarter of the surveyed companies responded to the survey. This is likely due to the fact that companies that are part of the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) did not actively participate in the survey in accordance with the recommendations made by ASD, as Transparency International UK was unable to describe and define things such as the survey criteria and the required level of information.
Patria has its own ethical code, and the company also follows ASD’s standards for ethical operations. In June 2012, Patria published the Group’s first social responsibility report on its website, but it was not taken into consideration in the survey. The report includes an extensive recount of Patria’s operations as a responsible company in the defence industry. Patria’s social responsibility report has been drawn up in accordance with Government Decision 3.11.2011 on the state’s ownership policy, and it is based on the guidelines published by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). GRI is an independent international community developing and publishing guidelines on social responsibility reporting.
“We here at Patria have recognised the gravity of these issues, patiently working to develop our operations for several years now. We follow ASD’s standards on ethical operations and have a clear ethical code at the Group in which the entire staff is continuously trained. Additionally, we have paid particular attention to the selection of our business partners for a long time now, especially from the perspective of ethical requirements, on account of which the commission and compensation principles pertaining to foreign business advisers have been made stricter. All this is integrally connected to anti-corruption work. It is very important to us to ensure that our personnel and partners are informed of, and are committed to, the appropriate industry practices. Public procurement procedures are also regulated extremely stringently; accordingly, the companies participating in tender processes are supervised and monitored very closely indeed”, emphasises Birgitta Selonen, Vice President, Corporate Communications.
