JBS reinforces Compliance initiatives and provides team members with 45,000 hours of training in 2019

As one of last year's highlights, the Company implemented a third-party reputation assessment system and generated more than 9,000 analyses

SÃO PAULO, March 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Company continued to improve and expand its compliance initiatives in 2019. Over the past 12 months, the JBS Compliance department has provided over 115,000 team members in Brazil with more than 37,000 hours of training on the Code of Conduct and Ethics.

Over 16,000 team members also received more than 8,000 hours of Anticorruption training, focusing mainly on Company managers and executives.  JBS will continue to invest in training in 2020 as an important part of its Compliance program. Training will focus on specific issues such as Conflicts of Interest and the Anticorruption material will be reviewed again this semester.

Marcelo Proença, JBS global Compliance director, says these efforts reflect the Company's commitment to consolidating international compliance protocols wherever it does business. "We are fulfilling our role as a global food industry leader by increasing our teams and partners' awareness and positively influencing the value chain. The engagement and level of participation we have achieved are evidence the initiatives we have implemented as part of our day-to-day operations are effective," said the executive.

Compliance also evolved in 2019 when the department implemented its due diligence system, which JBS developed in-house with support from an international consultancy to assess suppliers' reputations. The system carried out 9496 analyses last year, assessing not only suppliers' track records, but also the background of their shareholders to increase reliability of the partner hiring process.

Company data is automatically cross-referenced with databases from public organizations, keywords in search engines, international embargo lists, amongst other sources. The third parties accessed that present any non-compliance are automatically blocked and go through a second checking procedure which is carried out by the Compliance area.

Another major aspect of the Company's Compliance program is the JBS Ethics Line. The service, which is entirely outsourced, protects and guarantees anonymity for both team members and the general public at JBS in Brazil and other countries where the Company does business. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 4 languages.