Recent Compliance Trends and Examples at DYWIDAG

Since itsfounding in 1865, DYWIDAG has served its customers by ensuring the structural integrity of its projects while staying ahead of the competition through innovation. Our mission is to make infrastructure safer, stronger, and smarter.Today, DYWIDAG stands as a global leader in construction and infrastructure technology, working with government authorities, asset owners, construction companies, and design offices to support their infrastructure projects. We operate in over 50 countries worldwide and continue to keep infrastructure safe and secure every single day.

Our three capabilities:

• Geotechnics - Rock and soil anchor systems for ground stabilization and your infrastructure.

• Post-Tensioning - Flexible load-bearing systems for various sectors and demanding environments.

• Lifespan Management - Maintenance works, monitoring schemes, and robotic inspections for every phase of life.

Our systems are found in iconic projects around the world such as The Golden Gate Bridge, Panama Canal, Kap Shui Mun Bridge, and Freedom Tower.

We have grown to 1,600+ employees and 25 licensees in 50+ countries serving 10+ infrastructure sectors. We combine global expertise with local presence —wherever you’re located.

At DYWIDAG, we believe that long-term success requires us to ensure that we share the same values and that we act with respect to rules and regulations. Therefore, Ethics and Compliance is important for DYWIDAG. Safety, Excellence, Honesty, Integrity, Trust, and Responsibility are our meaningful values and foundation of our Code of Conduct, DYWIDAG Spirit.

"Globalization of business is a chance and benefit of the times we live in"

Our Compliance Team concentrates on traditional Compliance related areas, such as whistleblowing system, forensic investigations, compliance courses, compliance events, management compliance certifications, anti-bribery, antitrust, corporate governance, CoI, Data Protection (GDPR) and Policies&Procedures. There are also areas of increasing importance, and this is where we are allocating additional efforts: Export Controls, Intermediaries Management and ESG.

1. Export Controls – Globalization of business is a chance and benefit of times we live in. DYWIDAG is proud to be a global company, offering its products, services, and solutions almost everywhere in the world. This needs to be done smartly and with respect to existing regulations. Export controls  require sanctions analysis and monitoring to ensure we are dealing only with legitimate partners. To better respond on risks associated with export controls in all exporting DYWIDAG entities, we have nominated Export Controls Specialists who follow clear policy and process and are supported by export controls screening tools. 

More difficult cases require internal Legal analysis, and in some cases we obtain advice from external export controls specialised lawyers. 

2. Intermediaries Management – Although our internal Sales forces are active on many global markets, in some territories we rely on intermediaries – including agents, distributors or licensees. These partners allow us the flexibility to approach various markets with an individualised approach. This flexibility is not without respect to our DYWIDAG Spirit, to our values. Our intermediaries and partners must follow the same rules as we all do. We invested 

a lot of time and effort into developing this area to make sure that our intermediaries follow the same zero tolerance to non-compliance rule

3. ESG – DYWIDAG's path to excellence started in 2020 with deep-dive brainstorming sessions, which intended to define the fit-to-DYWIDAG ESG Framework and KPIs. We introduced the ESG Framework in late 2020:

That was only the beginning. Chief Compliance Officer was nominated as ESG Leader and the ESG Framework was officially communicated to all employeesand promoted in all DYWIDAG locations. Then we asked ourselves: how do we score ourselves? We needed quantitative measures to assess ourstatus and trends. Therefore, we have introduced 15 ESG KPIs and since then we are measuring these and reporting to the Board of Directors. Quickly we  realized deficiencies in areas we believed to be strong. Thus, our Chief Compliance Officer organized workshops, sponsored also by the Senior Leadership Team, during which action plans to improve each ESG KPI/Focus areawere  developed, together with nominating action plans and owners. This process is an ongoing PDCA cycle, which defines DYWIDAG responsibility for Environment, Social and Governance.

2022 means further growth, both for DYWIDAG, but also for our Compliance team. Going forward,we want to continue our focus on further development in Export Controls, Intermediaries Management and ESG as previously outlined. In 2021, in DYWIDAG we put special attentionto Anti-Harassment topics and issues through special sessions and online courses addressing this important matter.In 2022, our focus will be put on Diversity and Inclusion.If you wish to discuss the best practices in Compliance or exchange your thoughts on this matter, please reach out to Radek Bielinski, DYWIDAG Chief Compliance Officer (compliance@dywidag-systems.com)