The "Business Ethics Helpline" is available to all executives and employees (including part-time and temporary employees) as well as retired employees. The purpose of the helpline is to prevent legal violations and injustice (including labor-related issues, sexual harassment, and power harassment) from occurring and correct them upon early detection.
In addition, we have set up internal (within the Corporate Compliance Department of Oji Holdings) and external (at a lawyer's office) reporting windows. We also accept reports and consultations from executives and employees of our business partners, job applicants, interns, other trainees, and former trainees. We will identify and correct any improper conduct at an early stage.
Whistleblowers are legally protected following the Group Whistleblower Regulations, which stipulate the protection of whistleblowers as stipulated by the Whistleblower Protection Act, and are kept strictly confidential, are prohibited from retaliation or any other prejudicial treatment, and may remain anonymous.
This system is described in the Oji Group Corporate of Conduct and the Oji Group Behavior Standard and is distributed to all officers and employees. And more, we disclose it on the intranet so that we can promptly report any conduct that violates these rules or any risk of such behavior occurring. The Company also makes this information known every month through “Compliance News.”
We have established the Group's whistleblower regulations which comply with the Whistleblower Protection Act to ensure that all Group companies are thoroughly familiar. The Group Whistleblower Regulations stipulate the structure of the whistleblower system, prohibition of prejudicial treatment of whistleblowers, information management to maintain confidentiality during investigations, and penalties for violations of these regulations.
In addition, we accept reports from outside our companies through "Contact Us (Category: Compliance)" on our website in case of compliance violations by officers and employees. And the information may remain anonymous and is treated with the strictest of confidentiality as with employees.
The "Contact Us (Category: Compliance)" is staffed by the Corporate Compliance Department members, who are committed to acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills through attending external training sessions, participating in workshops, and holding regular workshops with other consultants.

In FY2022, the number of reports and consultations to the Oji Group Business Ethics Helpline was 133. Reports or consultations concerning "harassment" and "work environment / human relations" accounted for the majority, including consultations on miscommunication with a supervisor or coworker in the workplace in daily work. Depending on the nature of the subject matter of report or consultation, basically the Corporate Compliance Department staff or the compliance promotion leader of the company investigates the matter carefully from a fair standpoint and take action to solve the problem and resolve concerns, including referring the matter to a lawyer or other third party.