SCHOTT Integrity Helpline

SCHOTT’s corporate culture is characterized by responsibility and mutual respect for our employees and business partners. Compliance with laws, standards, and internal guidelines has the highest priority. To enable us to remedy grievances immediately to effectively avoid damage to SCHOTT, our employees and business partners, we depend on being notified immediately of potential (legal) violations and violations of internal regulations.

A worldwide whistleblowing system is available for this purpose. If there is a suspicion of possible compliance violations against laws, the SCHOTT Code of Conduct or SCHOTT internal regulations committed by SCHOTT employees in connection with their employment or third parties, then employees, business partners and other third parties can report these through the following channels: 

1. Direct contact with the Compliance Office of SCHOTT
(email or personal approach of the Compliance Office staff members).

2. Direct contact with ombudspersons
via telephone, email or contact form

• Attorneys at Law Dr. Caroline Jacob / Dr. Rainer Buchert
  
  Kaiserstrasse 22, 60311 Frankfurt, Germany
  Phone: +49 (0) 69 71033330 / +49 (0) 6105 921355
  Fax: +49 (0) 69 71034444
  Email: kanzlei@dr-buchert.de
  Responsible for all SCHOTT sites worldwide (except USA and Asia)

• Attorney Marian Ho
  
  80 Raffles Place, #33-00 UOB Plaza 1, 048624 Singapore
  Phone; +65 6885 3610
  Email: marian.ho@dentons.com
  Responsible for Asia

• Attorney at Law Dr. Klaus H. Jander
  
  307 Stanwich Road, Greenwich, CT 06830, USA
  Phone: +1 (0) 203 6616140
  Fax: +1 (0) 203 6224077
  Email: KHJander@gmail.com
  Responsible for USA
  
  

3. Electronic whistleblowing system
(accessible worldwide, managed by external attorneys Dr. Jacob / Dr. Buchert). In a simple and non-traceable way, it is also possible to communicate anonymously with the ombudspersons during the entire process if desired (link to the entry form).

If you have any questions regarding the use of the whistleblowing system, here are a number of frequently asked questions:

What type of information can I share with the whistleblowing system?

The main purpose of the whistleblowing system is to accept information on compliance issues that have the potential to inflict severe damage. Potential damage can affect both the respective employees (e.g. severe cases of mobbing or discrimination) and the company (e.g. financial losses or damage to its reputation as a result of criminal offenses such as bribery, disloyalty, fraud, tax offenses, or antitrust violations), as well as business partners.
Only specific information on compliance violations will be accepted. 

What topics does the whistleblowing system cover?

The Compliance Office and the ombudspersons do not perform customer service tasks. They are there to receive information on potential violations of law and SCHOTT internal regulations. If you have a problem with your delivery or similar, please get in touch with your usual SCHOTT contact.

What are the responsibilities of the ombudspersons?

The duties of the ombudspersons include the following:

• Acceptance of confidential information.
• Advising the informant on what will happen next.
• Evaluating the conclusiveness of information / the trustworthiness of the person who provided it.
• Writing and forwarding an ombudsman report to the SCHOTT Compliance Office (in anonymized form if desired).
• To act as a “link” between SCHOTT and the informant/s while the matter is being investigated.
• To share the outcome of proceedings with the informant.

Who has access to my message?

Confidentiality is maintained throughout the entire process. In this context, the reporting offices treat the identity of the person providing the information, the persons who are the subject of a report, and the other persons named in the report as confidential. The identity becomes known only to the person responsible for receiving the report or for taking follow-up action. 

At the request of the person providing the information, the report can also be submitted anonymously.

Can there be negative consequences if I share information via the whistleblowing system?

In principle, no. You should not be afraid of any negative consequences simply because you provided information. The exception is if you deliberately misused the whistleblowing system. For instance, to wrongly accuse employees or other business partners.

What happens after I have passed on information through the whistleblowing system?

For more information on the procedure after receiving the report and the protection of the whistleblower, lease refer to the process description in the download section.