Second meeting on Certification project

On October 4th, A. Yakorev, Director of Center for Business Ethics & Compliance (CBEC) and his Deputy, Luke Hornblower took part in a meeting led by Patricia Dowden, President and CEO of Center for Business Ethics & Corporate Governance (CFBE) www.ethicsrussia.org on the proposed certification requirements. The meeting took place at PwC’s office in Moscow with representatives of companies such as Ernst & Young, Coca-Cola, MTS, Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent along with experts, consultants and specialists from various civil society institutions. The participants discussed the ongoing project launched by CFBE to agree on the essential Certification requirements for the 3rd parties in Russia who work and desire to work with multinationals. Among the key components for the Certification are design of standards, compliance levels required, costs, audit process, benchmark reporting, SME organizations’ level of involvement etc.

Oleg Babinov, Head of Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia Practice at The Risk Advisory Group, moderated the very active discussions. Both the panelists and the other experts present provided their input. This input is instrumental for getting feedback from professionals and companies on the key elements of the Certification project.

A. Yakorev collected and summarized the input from the participants to ensure all the ideas and comments expressed could later be used towards to the successful development of the project. This project is a serious and collective effort on the part of the corporate, legal and expert community in Russia.