The Bazan Group champions a wide-ranging policy of ethics and corporate governance. As one of the leaders in Israel's economy, and as owner of several first-class industrial and strategic plants, the Bazan Group is proud of its commitment to the stringent international principles of corporate responsibility. These principles are woven into the Company's economic, social and environmental success.
The Bazan Group makes sure to give sustainable added value to its stakeholders, including shareholders, investors, customers, suppliers, government ministries, regulatory bodies, environmental organizations, the community. It has instilled an uncompromising policy of fully transparent corporate governance, fostering and implementing fair and appropriate ethical rules (including of course, control and oversight). This is in conjunction with compliance with legislation, regulations and any directive in accordance with the law.
The Bazan Group operates in a manner such that the use of resources at its disposal is made efficiently and intelligently, it regards employee safety, public health and environmental protection as being extremely important. The Group invests significant resources in nurturing its human capital and recognizes fair employment and an employment horizon as significant conditions for success.
In order to meet the strict standards of ethics and corporate governance, the Group’s board has adopted a work procedure based in the recommendations of the Goshen Committee (the committee for the examination of the corporate governance code.
Code of ethics
The Bazan Group has a code of ethics which was written in the spirit of the Company's vision and is based on four key core values:
The code of ethics comprises five chapters and deals with appropriate courses of action on the subjects of employees, customers, organizational management, environment and community, suppliers and service providers. The Bazan Group views the code of ethics as a tool which has been instrumental in its success.
Bazan board of directors
The perception of corporate responsibility is linked to the structure of the Bazan Group’s board of directors and management. The board of directors comprises 11 directors, of whom two are independent directors (as an independent director is defined in Section 1 of the Companies Law) and two are outside directors. The Group ensures separation between management positions, inter alia by seeing to it that the directors are not subordinate to the CEO and the chairman of the board of directors does not fulfil any other function in the company. The Bazan Group has clear policies and rules in the board of directors on topics such as human diversity and a collective mix of skills. Every year the Group holds management and control meetings which do not take place in the presence of the CEO and/or his subordinates. At any given moment there are at least four directors who have accounting and financial skills on the Group’s board of directors.
Corporate governance and ethics forum – the Group has a corporate governance and ethics forum which is responsible for targets such as oversight of implementation of various enforcement programs, monitoring of risk management and control management in the Bazan Group, assistance with all the actions taken by the Group in accordance with the requirements of the law, recommendation to adopt appropriate standards of transparency and disclosure, compliance with the code of ethics (at the personal, organizational and commercial levels).
Internal enforcement – the Bazan Group implements a number of plans for internal enforcement relating to corporate governance, safety, the environment, antitrust laws, securities laws, prevention of sexual harassment and compliance with international trade restrictions. The Company has a balance sheet and control committee which serves, inter alia, as a compliance and enforcement committee.
Committee involvement and financial investments – the Bazan Group makes substantial investments to promote community relations and various projects on behalf of the public at large. This is in accordance with the policy adopted by the Company which is the result of in-depth discussion of the community involvement committee with the board of directors of Bazan. The Group invests significant sums amounting to thousands of dollars in this area every year. These are wide-ranging investments of institutions which are based on the selection of appropriate targets such as community welfare, promotion of education, environmental quality, etc.