November 22, 2016
In an article in Svenska Dagbladet on November 22 allegations are made about potential conflicts of interest concerning former Ericsson employees and a local supplier in South East Asia. Following the article Ericsson wants to make the following comment:
According to Ericsson’s Code of Business Ethics, employees must avoid conflicts of interest. If an Ericsson employee has a position or ownership in an external entity, which could give rise to a conflict of interest, the employee must report this to his or her manager or Ericsson’s legal function, who then assess the situation. Ownership in a supplier could be a conflict of interest and should be reported in this way. If that doesn’t happen, it is a breach of our policies and guidelines.
Ericsson continuously work to ensure our suppliers meet high social, ethical, human rights and environmental standards. In our sourcing process the companies are evaluated on a number of criteria, including ownership. We continuously gather information from our suppliers to discover potential issues or misconduct.
What we can say regarding this specific case is that the supplier in question has been screened in accordance with our sourcing process and that no red flags have been raised. If conflicts of interest have existed without being reported in accordance with our directives, it is serious and a breach of our Code of Business Ethics.
Read more about Ericsson’s sourcing processes here.