Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement

At Meet, we have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery, and we are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our own business or in any of our supply chains. 

We have taken steps to tackle modern slavery, as outlined in our statement, and we require the same high standards from all of our contractors, suppliers and other business partners. This policy applies to all persons working for us or on our behalf in any capacity, including employees at all levels, contractors, agency workers, seconded workers, volunteers, interns, external consultants, third-party representatives and business partners. 

Organisational Structure & Supply Chains

Meet Recruitment Ltd., Meet Recruitment Inc. and Meet Personalberatung GmbH are subsidiaries of Project Panda Topco. Widely known as Meet, we are an international talent provider in the Life Sciences sector with operations in the UK, USA & Germany.

Our supply chain includes independent contractors, management companies, job boards, property, media, IT equipment, stationery, and print suppliers. We establish a relationship of trust and integrity with all our suppliers, which is built upon mutually beneficial factors. Our supplier selection and on-boarding procedure includes due diligence of the supplier's reputation, respect for the law, compliance with health, safety and environmental standards, and references. 

Our global client base includes Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, Medical Technology and Healthcare Communications businesses across Life Sciences. 

We haven't been made aware of any allegations of human trafficking/slavery activities against any of our clients or suppliers, but if we were, then we would act immediately against the supplier and report it to the authorities.

Policies

Meet have a number of policies in place for identifying and preventing slavery and human trafficking in our operations. We continuously review and update these policies:

• Whistleblowing Policy - we encourage all employees, customers and suppliers to report any suspicion of slavery or human trafficking without fear of retaliation. Internally we provide a confidential platform called incognito to protect the identity of whistle-blowers. 
• Code of Conduct - our code encourages employees to do the right thing by clearly stating the actions and behaviour expected of them when representing the business. We strive to maintain the highest standards of employee and we require our suppliers to comply with our values. 

Due Diligence 

As part of our efforts to monitor and reduce the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our supply chains, we have adopted the following due diligences procedures. 

• Assessing risks in the provision of particular services 
• Conduct due diligence on all new suppliers during on-boarding
• Auditing the suppliers, and their health and safety standards, labour relations and employee contracts 
• Requiring improvements to substandard employment practices 
• Sanctioning suppliers that fail to improve their performance in line with our requirements 

We require all suppliers to attest that: 

• They don't use any form of forced, compulsory or slave labour 
• Their employees work voluntarily and are entitled to leave work 
• They provide each employee with an employment contract that contains a reasonable notice period for terminating their employment 
• They don't require employees to post a deposit/bond and don't withhold their salaries for any reasons 
• They don't require employees to surrender their passports or work permits as a condition of employment 

Risk and Compliance 

We have in place processes and procedures to identify, assess, mitigate, and monitor potential risk areas in our supply chain, including slavery and human trafficking risks. These are regularly monitored and updated. 

Further Steps

We’re committed to reviewing steps we have taken this year to ensure that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chain we intend to take the following steps:

• We are improving our procurement policy to better reflect our commitment to responsible sourcing acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships.
• We are introducing a supplier code of conduct which includes requirements to combat modern slavery and human trafficking.
• We are improving our third-party due diligence processes to more effectively identify and monitor any potential risk to ensure modern slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chain.
• We are improving our training experience to our staff to ensure better understanding the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chain and the risk to our business.

This statement is made pursuant to Section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for 2023.