Whistleblower System
CELLFORCE and Porsche reject all forms of corruption, cartelization, money laundering or any other white-collar crime and do not tolerate any unlawful behavior by managers, employees, customers, business partners or public officials.
CELLFORCE and Porsche do not tolerate any violations
CELLFORCE and Porsche take tips about potential violations very seriously, investigate such information carefully and take appropriate actions in response to detected violations, in compliance with applicable employment and co-determination laws.
Why is the Whistleblower System important?
Compliance with applicable laws and internal rules (“compliance”) is a matter of course for all employees of CELLFORCE and is a key requirement for CELLFORCE’s and Porsche’s business success as well as a high level of employee and customer satisfaction.
In this context, values such as the assumption of responsibility, conviction and steadfastness, mutual respect and trustful collaboration all play an important role. This also includes addressing mistakes and failures openly, critically questioning decisions, seeking advice if necessary and reporting reasonable suspicions of potential violations.
A Whistleblower System has been set up so that potential violations can be reported in good time, processed in a standardized manner, promptly remedied and sanctioned appropriately. It is available to all employees of the Porsche Group as well as external third parties, such as business partners or customers.
The Whistleblower System thus helps to ensure Compliance in the Porsche Group. As such, it is an important element of Porsche’s Compliance Management System and of good corporate governance.
What is the Whistleblower System responsible for?
The Whistleblower System is responsible for tips of potential violations by employees of the Porsche Group.
Violations are intentional or negligent violations of applicable law (e.g. laws, ordinances, etc.) or internal company regulations, particularly violations of the Code of Conduct as well as violations of contractual obligations by employees of the Porsche Group that they commit in connection with or on the occasion of their work for the Porsche Group.
The Code of Conduct summarizes the most important principles and expectations on business integrity and ethical and sustainable conduct for the Porsche Group and provides the legal and group-internal ground rules to which all employees have to abide by in daily operations. This includes, among others, dealing with conflicts of interest, combating corruption in any form, appropriate conduct within the Group, as well as with customers, business partners and officers, as well as taking responsibility for the economy, the environment and society.
Customer complaints, on the other hand, do not belong in the whistleblower system.
How can I report a tip?
There are various reporting channels available to you, such as the internal Whistleblower Office (Porsche), a telephone hotline, an e-mail mailbox or the ombudspersons of the Volkswagen Group. Executives, employees, customers or business partners, public officials or other third parties can anonymously report reasonable suspicions of a violation by employees of the Porsche Group to two external lawyers of trust, known as Ombudspersons. The Ombudspersons are available to whistleblowers as contact persons around the clock via various reporting channels free of charge. They treat all tips as part of their attorney-client privilege confidential and guarantee the whistleblowers (if needed) anonymity.
In order for a tip to be processed and investigated correctly, it is important that it is as specific as possible. The five following W questions can be helpful:
>Who? >What? >When? >How? >Where?
As a whistleblower, please make sure that your descriptions can also be understood by non-specialists. It is also helpful if you are available for further questions and do not submit your tip entirely anonymously, i.e. without the possibility of further questions.
Whistleblowers do not have to fear sanctions or other disadvantages in submitting tips to the Whistleblower System.
Which reporting channels can I use?
Internal Whistleblower Office
Address:
Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG
GR – Whistleblower Office
Porscheplatz 1
70435 Stuttgart
Germany
Phone: +49 (0)711 911-244 44
Fax: +49 (0)711 911-263 96
E-Mail: whistleblower-office(at)porsche.de
External ombudspersons
ATTORNEY-AT-LAW DR. RAINER BUCHERT
Address:
Kaiserstraße 22, 60311 Frankfurt
Phone: +49 (0)69 71 03 33 30
Fax: +49 (0)69 71 03 44 44
E-Mail: dr-buchert(at)dr-buchert.de
ATTORNEY-AT-LAW THOMAS ROHRBACH
Address:
Wildgäßchen 4, 60599 Frankfurt
Phone: +49 (0)69 65 30 03 56
Fax: +49 (0)69 65 00 95 23
E-Mail: rohrbach(at)ra-rohrbach.de
24/7-Hotline
Details on how to contact the ombudspersons are available in the Group languages by calling +49 (0) 69 65 30 04 90.
Can I also report tips anonymously?
Yes, both the internal Whistleblower Office and the external ombudspersons accept anonymous information. In the online procedure, the whistleblowers communicate via a virtual mailbox with an alias name that they can choose freely. Names, telephone numbers or any other contact data are not collected.
Generally, the following should be observed for anonymous tips: When processing tips, queries are often necessary in order to fully understand and evaluate the tips. This important communication is not possible for anonymous reports without contact details of the whistleblower. In the worst case, this might mean that tips that would need to be followed up cannot be processed accordingly due to a lack of concrete information. For this reason, it is important to provide contact details, even if the whistleblower has to create an anonymous e-mail address for this purpose.
Data privacy information on the whistleblower system
The data privacy information on the whistleblower system can be found here: