In order to respond effectively to the increase in risk that has accompanied globalization, in July 2017 the Yokohama Rubber Group Competition Law Compliance Policy and Yokohama Rubber Group Anti-corruption Policy were approved by the Board of Directors and came into effect. By announcing these new policies both in Japan and overseas, and by formulating rules and guidelines that embody the policies in concrete form and familiarizing stakeholders with them, we aim to prevent violations of competition law and criminal offences involving bribery.
By integrating these policies with our Global Whistleblower System, adoption of which began in February 2018, and implementing them in our subsidiaries throughout the world, we believe we can raise the overall level of compliance in the Yokohama Rubber Group to an even higher level.

Yokohama Rubber has established a Compliance Committee chaired by the Director in charge of Compliance, as well as a Compliance Promotion Office as its implementation department. The Committee meets four times a year and continues to implement various measures related to compliance within our group. The Committee also reports its activities to the Board of Directors and Audit & Supervisory Committee. The corporate Philosophy and Action Guidelines of the Yokohama Rubber Group are made known and presented to Group companies, including overseas companies, to serve as the guidelines for the execution of duties by Directors and employees at each company. Every division in the Yokohama Rubber Group is assigned personnel who belong to the Corporate Compliance Department as well, to continue to share the progress of the activities in internal education and related information in the workplace. In our domestic and overseas group companies, we have appointed a compliance promotion manager to facilitate the development of the same level of activities in each company.

The Corporate Compliance Hotline refers to the system of accepting even anonymous whistle-blowing in accordance with the Whistleblower Protection Act. The telephone number and email address are stated on the Corporate Compliance Card that is distributed to all domestic Yokohama Rubber Group’s employees. There are two hotlines, an internal hotline and an external hotline. As the external hotline has been established at an external law firm, independence has been secured for this hotline. Additionally, we have established an "Anything You Can Ask" consultation service, where any employee can anonymously ask questions about compliance. In fiscal year 2023, there were a total of 242 reports and consultations through both the hotline and "Anything You Can Ask."
Yokohama Rubber has introduced a "Global Whistleblower System" at its overseas subsidiaries that allows the Yokohama Rubber Compliance Department to directly identify any violations of competition laws, bribery-related activities, and violations by local subsidiary executives through an external contact point. In February 2018, adoption of the new System began in China at the company responsible for overall supervision of our China-based operations and at our tire sales company in China.
By 2022, the introduction of the system in China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and North America has been completed with the exception of some offices.
Beginning in 2023, we will begin studying the introduction of the system at our production facilities in Indonesia.
We have begun implementing this initiative at our production facility in Indonesia, starting in November 2023.
In Europe, our European headquarters signed a contract with a company that provides a whistleblowing system, and it implemented a joint whistleblowing system that it uses along with its eight subsidiaries. In addition to serving as a whistleblowing system for these nine companies, including the controlling company, the system also functions as a global whistleblowing system in which the Corporate Compliance Dept. directly receives reports from local employees depending on the content of the report.
This system has been in operation since January 2021.

In operating both our global and domestic internal reporting systems, we have established Yokohama Rubber Group Internal Reporting Rules and Global Internal Reporting Rules that include whistleblower protection provisions. These rules explicitly state that whistleblowers will not suffer any disadvantages for reporting violations.

Being able to appropriately monitor the state of compliance at overseas subsidiaries is an important issue. By making effective use of the periodic reporting system that is already being implemented, and of the global whistle-blowing system that we have begun to adopt, we are approaching the stage where we will be able to effectively monitor compliance issues at each overseas business location.