Human Rights Policy
Cathay FHC’s business locations all comply with local human rights protection related laws and regulations. Furthermore, we established the Cathay Financial Holdings—Human Rights Policy in accordance with international frameworks, such as the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as UN Global Compact and International Labour Organization related regulations, to ensure the adequate protection of human rights.
Cathay employees are required to abide by the Code of Conduct for Employee and the conduct prohibits employee from any form of discrimination or other acts that violate human rights. We provide education and training related to the Code of Conduct for Employee and legal compliance on an annual basis, so that all of our employees understand and abide by the abovementioned policy. In 2021, the coverage and completion of education and training related to the Code of Conduct for Employee both reached 100%.
Grievance/Reporting Mechanism
1. Whistleblower System
Cathay FHC established a whistleblower system so that any person who discovers crimes, frauds or violation of laws by Cathay may report the misconducts via the system. The system is overseen by an independent director and is planned by the head of compliance. The system's implementation results are reported to the board of directors and Audit Committee at least once every six months.
2. Sexual Harassment and Gender Equality
We established the "Regulations for Establishing Measures of Prevention, Correction, Complaint and Punishment of Sexual Harassment at Workplace" and the "Sexual Harassment Prevention, Grievance and Investigation Policy” to prevent sexual harassment and violations of gender equality. We also set up an e-mail account and established the Sexual Harassment Grievance and Investigation Committee to investigate sexual harassment cases. If a sexual harassment complaint is found to be true, the offender will be brought before the Personnel.
Evaluation Committee, which will decide on the appropriate disciplinary measures, while the victim will receive counseling and care. Meanwhile, sexual harassment education and training will be intensified for other employees to prevent further cases of sexual harassment from occurring. Moreover, Cathay accepts cases regarding employees harassed by outsiders and we help the employee fight for rights by appeal to external units.
3. Others
Employees can report other issues not mentioned above to the audit or administration department.In 2021, the whistleblowing system received 2 report from internal whistleblowers. Investigation reports were completed for all cases and all cases were closed without any finding evidence of violations of the law. Moreover, the group received 3 cases of sexual harassment or violations of gender equality. In 2021, Cathay handled 8 cases of employee-employer disputes, in which 5 cases are currently going through defense and appeals. All cases were adequately processed and closed in accordance with related regulations.
Human Rights Risk Management
Cathay established a human rights risk investigation process to periodically evaluate the impact of persons of interest and improve management. We took into consideration international human rights frameworks, the company's development strategy, and external trends, and selected risk issues after inquiring the opinions of stakeholders, including Cathay FHC's CS Committee, employees, and external consultants. We then examined the risk rating of each issue and identified high risk groups for management.
