.ethics and compliance

Our ethical principles and compliance to the rules governing our business, help to guide Sopra Steria’s action. That commitment forms the bedrock of the relationship of trust between the company and its stakeholders.

The Group is a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact (GC Advanced) and it abides by the fundamental principles and rights in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

These fundamental principles and the values of Sopra Steria are presented in its Code of Ethics. With the support of Management, which ensures compliance with the rules as laid down, this Code applies to all the Group’s employees in order to guarantee the proper conduct of its activities.

Sopra Steria has put in place in all its subsidiaries a programme for preventing and fighting corruption and influence peddling, which is underpinned by:

• An undertaking by the Group’s Management recalling the importance of prevention and the policy of zero tolerance where corruption is concerned.
• Horizontal governance under the authority of the Internal Control Department, which is reliant upon a network of Internal Control Managers charged with compliance and risk management in each of its subsidiaries.
• A Code of Conduct for the prevention of corruption and influence-peddling, illustrated by concrete examples and issued in ten languages, covering all Group subsidiaries .
• A Sopra Steria Code of conduct for Suppliers and Partners which aims to enforce our commitments to our stakeholders.
• A training programme comprising an e-learning module intended to raise the awareness of all employees and classroom-based sessions for employee categories deemed to be more exposed to risks of corruption.
• A common core of rules, procedures and controls applicable to all Group subsidiaries.
• A whistleblowing system, available for all stakeholders: ethics@soprasteria.com

The security, integrity and confidentiality of the data and of the identity of the whistleblower are ensured. The whistleblower must act in good faith and without direct financial compensation. The whistleblower is protected against any form of retaliation, discrimination or disciplinary sanction in relation to the whistleblowing. This protection extends to any person connected with the whistleblower and/or the raising of the alert.

The Code of Ethics is supplemented by Insider Trading Rules relating to securities transactions and the prevention of insider trading compliant with the EU market abuse regulation.

And lastly, the Group’s commitment and performance in the area of Corporate Responsibility have been recognised with the award of the CSR Platinum Medal by Ecovadis, a global rating platform applying social, ethical, environmental and supply-chain criteria.