UK Modern Slavery Act

UK Modern Slavery Act

Applicable to: companies that carry out business in the UK and its turnover (or the turnover of a parent company and its subsidiaries) reaches GBP 36 million or more.

The UK Modern Slavery Act consolidates existing offenses of human trafficking and slavery, encompassing all forms of exploitation. All businesses that carry out business in the UK need to provide transparency on their supply chains and prepare an annual statement on slavery and human trafficking. Such a statement needs to detail what steps a company takes to ensure no exploitation occurs within its lines of business or its supply chain. Although there is no financial penalty for non-compliance, the Secretary of State can seek an injunction requiring the company to file the statement.

Specifically, Section 54 of the act outlines the annual statement must include the following information:

1. Oorganization’s structure, its business and supply chians
2. Policies in relation to slavery and human trafficking
3. Due dilligence processes
4. Assessment and management of the risks of modern slavery
5. How they assess the effectiveness of the actions (KPSs)
6. Training and capacity building available to the staff

The UK Government is looking to update the legislation to introduce more stringent measures in case of non-compliance.