Modern Slavery and Supply Chain Reporting addresses the forthcoming reporting requirements that will affect approximately 3000 Australian businesses in relation to the occurence of modern slavery in their supply chains. The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), which came into force on 1 January 2019, mandates that businesses of a particular size must report on the steps they are taking to ensure modern slavery is not occuring in their own operations and their supply chains.
This reporting requirement includes the production of statements that must be signed at board level and will be publicly available on a central register. Sunil Rao's plain-English text will be an essential guide to the new regime, because it is designed to help businesses and their legal advisors understand: - what constitutes "modern slavery" and what kinds of exploitation may occur in businesses' supply chains that needs to be reported under the anticipated Act (and are already required in UK and California for Australian businesses with operations there) - what standards businesses have to meet to comply with the law, distilled into a set of principles and flowcharts, and - what is required in Modern Slavery disclosure statements, in terms of content and presentation, given that these will be public documents that will be ranked and assessed by NGOs and potentially impact on business reputation.
