Argus Modern Slavery Statement
Argus Media Limited Modern Slavery Statement
This statement has been published in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It sets out the steps taken by Argus Media Limited and its group of companies* to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and amongst our suppliers. It applies to the financial year ended 30 June 2024.
Introduction from the CEO
Slavery, servitude, forced labour and human trafficking ("Modern Slavery") should have no place in the modern world. We have a responsibility to be alert to the risks of Modern Slavery in our business and amongst our suppliers and to do whatever we can to eradicate them.
This statement sets out the steps that Argus Media Limited and its group companies (the "Argus Group") have taken to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in our business or amongst our suppliers.
Argus' structure and business
We are a provider of news and price information, consulting and conference services related to physical energy and other commodities. Argus Media Limited is the parent company and the Argus Group has offices globally in key centres for the commodity markets. The ultimate parent company for the Argus Group is Fleet Topco Limited and all the entities within the group structure adhere to this statement.
Our policies
The Argus Group policies include our global compliance policy, which sets out our ethical code on a number of matters, including Modern Slavery. This emphasises that we have a responsibility to do whatever we can to eradicate Modern Slavery in our business and amongst our suppliers. Additionally, our whistleblowing policy allows staff and external parties to report any concerns (extending to Modern Slavery), anonymously and in the knowledge that every matter reported will be fully investigated. We engage a whistleblowing hotline service provider with multilingual web based and telephone capability to facilitate the safe reporting by Argus Group staff and external parties, including contractors, of any such concerns in confidence.
All Argus Group employees globally are required to attest on joining the Argus Group, and then periodically, that they have read and understood the Argus Group policies.
All Directors have been briefed on the subject of Modern Slavery.
Working with our business and suppliers
We are committed to doing what we can to ensure that there is no Modern Slavery in any part of our business, or amongst our suppliers. We carry out an annual Modern Slavery risk assessment. As an information provider, we consider the business operated by Argus to be low risk due to the nature of our activities, our internal checking processes and the skill level of employees and consultants we typically engage. Higher risk exists in the use of some of our suppliers, which is where we maintain our compliance focus. Some suppliers in certain areas - such as our conference business, where we routinely hire hotels and function rooms - do pose some risk because suppliers in those areas may rely on seasonal, low paid and low skilled workers.
We utilise an online platform to conduct customer and supplier approval checks where appropriate in line with our policies to increase the quality of our supply chain due diligence. As part of our supplier approval process, our checks may include asking potential suppliers to provide their Modern Slavery Statement (together with certain other policies, including their compliance/ethics policy), and conducting adverse media checks where we check for Modern Slavery issues, prior to entering into or renewing a contract with them.
Our effectiveness in combating Modern Slavery
The key performance indicators (“KPIs”) below help to measure and demonstrate our efforts in 2023/2024 to ensure that Modern Slavery is not taking place in any part of our business or supply chains:
- Number of reports of concerns (actual or alleged) relating to Modern Slavery at Argus or in our supply chain received via our confidential staff whistleblowing hotline: 0
- Number of reports of concerns (actual or alleged) relating to Modern Slavery at Argus or in our supply chain received from the public or law enforcement agencies: 0
- Number of cases of Modern Slavery discovered in our supply chain via our supplier approval process: 0
- Argus Group ethical attestation in 2024: Completed by 100% of employees asked.
Actions taken in 2023/2024
This year, we have:
- submitted our latest Modern Slavery Statement to the UK Government modern slavery statement registry to demonstrate the positive steps we have taken to tackle Modern Slavery and to send a strong signal about the value we place on transparency;
- continued to require warranties and assurances when contracting with suppliers in our higher risk categories about their current and future actions to eliminate Modern Slavery; and
- continued to raise awareness amongst staff who deal with suppliers, of the issue of Modern Slavery and the approach taken by us.
Plans for 2024/2025
We plan to continue to develop our plans for working with our suppliers to combat Modern Slavery, including by monitoring emerging best practice in this area and updating our policies and procedures as appropriate.
We will also continue to educate our staff on their role in upholding our commitment to eradicating Modern Slavery in our business and amongst our suppliers.
This statement was approved by the board of directors of Fleet Topco Limited.
*Note – Group Companies in the financial year ended 30 June 2024
- Fleet Topco Limited
- Fleet Finco Limited
- Fleet Midco Limited
- Fleet Midco I Limited
- Fleet Midco II Limited
- Fleet Bidco Limited
- Fleet U.S. Bidco Inc.
- Argus Media Inc.
- DeWitt & Company Incorporated
- Argus Media Limited
- Argus Media Africa Limited
- Argus Media South Africa Limited
- Argus Media Mexico Price Reporting Group, S. de R.L. de C.V.
- Argus Media Australia PTY Limited
- Argus Benchmark Administration B.V.
- Argus Media Netherlands B.V.
- Argus Media Singapore Group Pte. Ltd.
- Argus Media Canada Ltd.
- Metal-Pages Limited
- Argus Rus Limited
- Integer Research Limited
- FMB Consultants Limited
- Fertilizer and Chemical Consultancy Limited
- FMB Publications Limited
- Argus Media Brasil Relatórios de Preço de Energia e Commodity Ltda
- Argus Media Ukraine LLC
- Argus Media Germany GmbH
- Argus India Price Reporting Services LLP
- Argus Metal-Pages (Beijing) Information Technology Co., Ltd.
- Agritel International (Ukraine)
- Argus Media Japan KK
- Oleochem Analytics S.L.
- Argus Media France SAS
- Argus Georgia LLC
- Argus Media Korea Limited
- Pipe Logix, LLC
- Mercaris Corporation
- PT Argus Media Indonesia
