Corporate Governance

Business Ethics

Code of Conduct

At CITIC, we are committed to upholding “The CITIC Spirit 中信風格” which is the cornerstone of our corporate culture, and also the fundamental code of the Company for guiding the business practice and conduct of our people:

  • Compliance遵紀守法
  • Integrity作風正派
  • Earnest實事求是
  • Innovation開拓創新
  • Modesty謙虛謹慎
  • Cooperation 團結互助
  • Diligence勤勉奮發
  • Effectiveness雷厲風行

We stick to core values and corporate culture & spirits with the characteristics of “CITIC SPIRIT”, think highly of employees’ integrity, morality and professional integrity, require employees to strictly obey the laws, regulations and disciplines in their operational activities. The company’s Code of Conducts regulates the basic requirements, standards of behaviors and prohibited issues, including employees’ professional integrity, external contacts, dealing with internal relationship, protecting the corporate interests and honoring the social obligations, to allow employees to understand the redlines and restricted zone. In 2016, we organised the training in terms of professional integrity, anti-fraud and anti-corruption according to the types of industries and levels of posts. Various publicizing platforms including the internal network, official accounts of Wechat and APP were utilised to educate and guide employees to establish and maintain their excellent conducts and behaviors. The company developed the system of regular self-criticism to detect the risks to honesty and justice, to investigate and punish all sorts of illegal behaviors, to analyze and evaluate the effective implementation of this system, to propose advices for further improvement and correction, and to stably improve the levels of internal control management.

1 As CITIC Bank restructured the audit organization, the statistical standard for calculating the number of staff members excluded compliance management staff members at bank branches.

Whistle-blowing policy

Employees are encouraged to propose complaints against the possible misconducts. The dedicated organization has been established with many channels including e-mails, phone call and fax and the dedicated personal have been put into charge. All reports with regard to misconducts received by the company shall be seriously treated with appropriate measures for internal investigations. The informer-protection mechanism has been established and implemented to keep the confidentiality of informers’ identity and issues having been reported. The range of information needing told to the relevant parties shall be strictly restricted in the investigative process.

Inside information/price sensitive information disclosure policy

The Company has adopted an inside information/price sensitive information disclosure policy setting out the practices and procedures for monitoring business and corporate developments and events so that any potential inside information/price sensitive information is promptly identified and relayed to the board to enable it to make timely decisions on disclosure, if necessary, and for taking appropriate measures to preserve confidentiality of inside information/price sensitive information until proper dissemination of the inside information/price sensitive information via the electronic publication system operated by the Stock Exchange.

Good employment practices

In Hong Kong, the Company has broadly followed the guide to good employment practices issued by the Employers’ Federation of Hong Kong to ensure legally compliant, non-discriminatory and professional employment practices are implemented.

Directors’ and relevant employees’ securities transactions

The Company has adopted the model code for securities transactions by directors of listed companies (“Model Code”) contained in Appendix 10 to the Listing Rules. All directors confirmed that they have complied with the required standard set out in the Model Code throughout 2016. As at 31 December 2016, none of the directors of the Company had interests in the securities of the Company as referred to in the Report of the Directors on page 131.

In addition to the requirements set out in the Company’s code of conduct, the joint company secretaries regularly write to executive management and other relevant employees who are privy to unpublished inside information/price sensitive information, as reminders of their responsibility to comply with the provisions of the Model Code and keep the matter confidential until announced. They are also specifically reminded not to engage in any insider dealings as stipulated under Section 270 of the Securities and Futures Ordinance.

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