Your concern will be passed on to a dedicated Global Ethics Line team in Danone’s Paris headquarters, who will review your concern and will determine further action, including, if applicable, referral to an internal or external impartial investigator, depending on the severity and scope of the concern raised.
In certain European countries [Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovakia and Poland],you will also be offered the choice to submit your concern to your local/regional team through the Danone Ethics Line.
Please note that the Global Ethics Line team
will have visibility that a concern has been raised and, to ensure the appropriate
independent checks and controls are in place, may request the local team to
share further details including any action taken.
Once your concern is submitted, we will send you a receipt of acknowledgment within 7 days. Please note that this acknowledgment does not imply any admissibility on behalf of Danone.
When raising your concern, we ask you to ensure you include precise information with, where appropriate, supporting documentation.
This will help us decide firstly if the concern falls within the scope of Danone’s Ethics Line and secondly if an investigation should be formally opened.
We may ask you to provide additional information to support your concern, this will be done directly through the Danone Ethics Line tool.
If we do not receive a reply within a reasonable time (usually 15 days), we may decide to close the concern as we do not have enough information to proceed.
All investigations are fact based, conducted in the strictest confidence and in accordance with Danone’s governances and policies on conducting internal investigations.
Except where circumstances require a longer timeline, we will aim to inform you within 3 months following the receipt of the concern about the results of our investigation.
If a potential violation is identified, the appropriate mitigation measures and/or sanctions shall be decided based on Danone’s governances and policies.
We do not tolerate retaliation in any form against anyone who reports a genuine concern in good faith or who participates in an investigation.
Danone strives to maintain the confidentiality of anyone who raises a concern and any other individuals who provide information in the course of an investigation.
Anyone involved in conducting an investigation is bound by a strict confidentiality obligation, designed to protect the identity of those involved in the investigation, whether as a witness, the person raising the concern or the accused person.
Any breach of this confidentiality obligation may lead to disciplinary and/or legal sanctions in accordance with Danone’s governances and policies.
For more information on how personal data is handled in the context of raising a concern, please refer to the Danone Ethics Line Privacy Statement.
