Transparency in supply chains

This statement is made in accordance with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the Act), and sets out the steps taken in our last financial year (1 May 2023 – 30 April 2024) throughout our global business to identify and reduce the risk of modern slavery occurring within either our business or supply chains.

1. Overview of our business and supply chains

Freshfields is a global law firm, operating as a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales (with registered number OC334789) and authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 484861), with branches and related undertakings across the world.  The world’s biggest international organisations rely on us to help them make the right decisions in a fast-changing world.  We combine the knowledge, experience and energy of the whole firm to solve our clients’ most complex challenges, wherever and whenever they arise.  This statement is published on behalf of Freshfields globally.

Freshfields has around 5,900 partners and active staff across Continental Europe, the UK,  Asia, the US, and in the Middle East and North Africa. We comply with all applicable employment legislation relating to employee terms and conditions, including pay and the freedom for employees to terminate their employment at any time.  All UK employees earn at least the “Real Living Wage” set by the Living Wage Foundation. 

Our larger areas of spend with suppliers (including contractors) are premises, technology, human resources and professional services.  Freshfields’ spend is centred in the UK, Germany and the US. Our global and first-tier suppliers are primarily contracted from the UK, which is also the primary location of our procurement team – with smaller local supplier agreements being managed at the level of each office.  Our spend, by value, in the last financial year was highly concentrated with large suppliers providing us technology, professional services and human resources services. 

2. Risk assesment

In previous years, the firm’s modern slavery advisory group (see section 4, below) oversaw an initial “heat mapping” exercise – taking into account factors including jurisdiction, category of spend and length of supply chain – and the identification of specific areas in which it would oversee further, detailed due diligence in relation to modern slavery in our supply chains.  These areas were in the following categories:

1. On-site personnel, including office cleaning and catering and hospitality staff (not directly employed);

2. Off-site personnel (not directly employed); and

3. Products procurement.

As part of this exercise the advisory group identified on-site contracted business services as an area of particular focus. The modern slavery advisory group has in the last year confirmed that these areas remain the salient risks for our business.  Our approach to addressing this heightened risk is addressed below.

3. Our approach to combatting modern slavery

Freshfields is committed to combatting modern slavery in all its forms.  This is an explicit priority within the firm’s Responsible Business programme which forms a key element of the firm’s wider strategy. We expect the same high standards of those we work with (see further details below).  More generally, our commitment to responsible business, observing the highest ethical standards and acting with integrity is embodied in the firm’s values.¹   

We have been a supporter of the United Nations Global Compact since 2009, and, within our sphere of influence and in our role as professional advisors, are committed to supporting and enacting values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption.  These are key features of our Responsible Business approach. 

As an international business with global supply chains, we adopt the international law definitions of forced labour² and human trafficking³ to frame our response to modern slavery as part of our Responsible Business programme and in fulfilling our responsibilities under the Act.  Relevant national criminal offences are addressed by us accordingly.

In addition to this high-level commitment, we have several operational policies relevant to our approach to this issue and these are subject to continuous review and development.  They are published on the firm’s intranet which is available to all employees. 

• We have an internal policy on modern slavery which applies globally to all partners, employees, officers, consultants, contractors, volunteers, interns, casual workers, agency workers and others providing services to our firm from time to time.
• Our Global Policy in Relation to Reporting Claims, Complaints and Other Issues, Raising Concerns and Whistleblowing covers reporting obligations and protection of whistle blowers. It also encourages anyone who suspects wrongdoing, explicitly including modern slavery abuses, to report it as soon as possible, in the knowledge that concerns will be dealt with confidentially, taken seriously and investigated as appropriate.  
• As alternative channels for raising concerns, we have the Freshfields global Speak Up Hotline (run by an independent service provider) and, in addition in Germany, a separate Ethics hotline.  The Speak Up hotline is also available to contractors, suppliers and other third parties.
• We also have the following internal policies to ensure we observe the highest personal, ethical and professional standards in everything we do and operate with integrity and respect at all times:
  • Being Freshfields principles (setting out the behaviour we can expect of each other, and should expect of ourselves, across all levels of the firm and in all locations in which we operate); ⁴
  • Global Policy against Bullying, Harassment and Other Unacceptable Behaviour;
  • Equal Opportunities policy; and
  • Global Procurement Policy.

We continue to implement our Responsible Procurement Strategy, including those elements related specifically to modern slavery.

• We have developed a structured approach to the management of suppliers via a supplier management framework . This framework is designed to enable improved transparency and collaboration with our suppliers. It will allow Freshfields to readily target and assess Modern Slavery risks with our key global and UK suppliers, with regard to the risk assessment outlined above. To further support this approach, we have this year onboarded EcoVadis, an external sustainability ratings platform, to help in our assessment of the sustainability performance of these suppliers, including assessment of their human rights commitments. Furthermore, our internal supplier due diligence questionnaire, which forms part of our supplier onboarding process, includes questions related to Modern Slavery.
• We continue to extend the scope of our assessment of Modern Slavery risk across our supply chain. This has included the assessment of a further 1200+ suppliers in Germany.  Additionally we continue to ask our suppliers to commit to our Responsible Business Procurement Guidelines which address Modern Slavery (96% of the suppliers who responded via the Global Procurement teams supplier onboarding tool have confirmed adherence to our guidelines, which is a slight increase on the prior year).
• We seek to comply with the applicable laws in Europe, such as the German Supply Chain Act (GSCA).  In this regard, our German supply chain has been analysed and categorised into High, Medium and Low risk categories⁵ and further assessment has commenced for 160+ High and Medium risk suppliers. 
• This year, we have developed a new Supplier Code of Conduct that clearly sets our expectations of our Suppliers with regard to ESG matters, including focus on Modern Slavery. This  will be deployed in late 2024 on our externally facing website, and will replace our current Responsible Procurement Business Guidelines.
• The firm’s standard contract terms have provisions relating specifically to modern slavery.  These terms are mandated in new contracts over a minimum value and as an addendum to longer running existing contracts on renewal.

We continue to operate our modern slavery advisory group (more details in section 4 below), which provides input on the structured approach to suppliers discussed above. Further, as part of our client sustainability practice, our lawyers assist our clients in respecting international human rights and complying with applicable legal obligations, while also advising on a range of related operational issues, including modern slavery compliance programmes, as detailed at: Human rights and supply chain | Freshfields    

4. Due diligence processes

Our efforts in relation to modern slavery are supported by an expert advisory group which is chaired by a partner who specialises in Global Business and Human Rights.  The advisory group is comprised of representatives from the following business functions:

• Procurement;
• Risk and professional ethics;
• Internal Audit;
• Responsible Business;
• Human Resources; and
• Global Business & Human Rights.

The purpose of the advisory group is to provide expert guidance and advice (including in relation to best practice) to the firm’s leadership (centrally, and across functions) in relation to modern slavery issues.  In the last year, members of the advisory group have continued to have discussions with the firm’s senior leadership regarding the management of modern slavery risk.  In addition, our Internal Audit function specifically considers modern slavery in its internal audit reviews (particularly in the context of reviewing procurement and supplier contracts), with regard to the risk assessment outlined above, and with particular focus on higher-risk areas.  As well as identifying opportunities to improve the firm’s controls that inhibit instances of modern slavery in its supply chain, these internal audits have had a subsidiary aim of ensuring increased awareness of modern slavery and its risks across the firm’s network of offices.  Internal Audit has also been working with the firm’s Global Head of Risk Management to ensure that the future internal audit programme is aligned with the firm’s view of its principal risks which include the firm’s evolving ESG agenda.

Our standard request for proposal (“RFP”) template includes two specific questions on modern slavery, has been in place for over 3 years and ensures sustainability (including modern slavery) is a core consideration of supplier selection. Furthermore our Global Procurement team’s supplier due diligence process covers those of our suppliers who provide global services as well as those suppliers providing services to our larger offices in the UK and Germany. This process includes Modern Slavery elements, and suppliers are also asked to confirm adherence to our Responsible Business Guidelines.

We will continue to monitor our modern slavery due diligence processes on an ongoing basis and identify opportunities to strengthen the prevention of modern slavery within our business, particularly as our operations and the context in which we operate evolves and new risks for modern slavery potentially emerge.

5. Measuring effectiveness

As noted above, 96% of suppliers responding via the Global Procurement teams supplier onboarding tool have confirmed their adherence to our Responsible Business Guidelines. In the context of our office internal audits, recommendations in respect of modern slavery have been provided to several of our global offices in relation to contractual best practice for on-site contracted business services, which have been accepted and acted upon.

Our global offices continue to take opportunities to integrate Responsible Business (including modern slavery) considerations in local purchasing decisions in higher risk areas:  last year our Berlin office tendered for new cleaning services and selected a provider specifically committed to our Responsible Business ambitions. Our ongoing local office moves will also have Responsible Business commitments as a key consideration in the selection of new suppliers.

We have not in the last year received any modern slavery-related complaints through our whistleblowing channels or our Speaking Up or Ethics hotlines.

6. Training

In addition to the firm’s policies set out in section 3 above, the firm maintains global business and human rights and modern slavery toolkits that are designed to provide our lawyers with the practical resources that they need to advise our clients on human rights and modern slavery issues.  A training programme has been created to assist our lawyers in understanding how these issues might arise in our clients’ businesses, including their global supply chains and how our clients can respond to these issues.  This training has been provided to our lawyers on a global basis with in-depth region-specific sessions in Asia, the Middle East and the US, as well as in the UK and our other European offices.

We have continued to provide information and training on modern slavery issues to our clients, in conference format, in individual sessions and through our Sustainability blog. 

The topic of modern slavery is discussed at every  Global Procurement team meeting to ensure the priority of the topic within the team is maintained. It forms part of a wider Responsible Procurement agenda, and is a priority focus area of the Global Procurement team.

7. Collaboration and leadership

We are members of the UN Global Compact UK Network’s working group on modern slavery.

Through our pro bono practice we continue to act directly for victims of human trafficking, and for charities working to combat human trafficking.  This year, for example, we saw the conclusion of a judicial review case we brought in the UK on behalf of our client ECPAT UK, a charity that fights child trafficking and exploitation.  The case concerned the way lone asylum-seeking children were received by the authorities; our client was concerned that hundreds of unaccompanied children had gone missing, with many suspected to have been trafficked or involved in criminal exploitation.  The case was successful and has unlocked £50m of funding to ensure that now unaccompanied asylum-seeking children receive the relevant statutory protections.  More about this case is available here: https://www.freshfields.com/en-gb/about-us/responsible-business/pro-bono/case-studies/ecpat-uk/. More about our pro bono work in this area is available here: https://www.freshfields.com/en-gb/about-us/responsible-business/pro-bono/case-studies/human-trafficking/.

Approvals

This statement was authorised and approved on 31 October 2024 by the Senior Partner on behalf of the Freshfields global partnership.

Georgia Dawson
Senior Partner

Signatories

This statement has been signed by representatives of Freshfields worldwide to reflect the firm’s commitment to global working and our responsible business strategy.