Ethics and Compliance

As an international company with a long and successful history, Merz Aesthetics upholds high ethical standards and delivers trusted results to our stakeholders. This means more than adhering to both external and internal rules; it also means respecting and exhibiting our values and operating norms that guide our daily business. Our Code of Conduct exemplifies these values and our responsibilities to employees, customers, and partners, as well as to the environment and the communities in which we do business.

Merz Aesthetics leadership promotes strong accountability with an expectation that everyone in the company exhibit ethical and compliant behavior. All business leaders are accountable to instill ethics and compliance within their regions and divisions. Global and Regional compliance programs provide support through clear and effective policies and education, timely detection, and proactive management of compliance concerns. Merz Aesthetics Legal and Compliance continuously learns and adapts the program to our business changes and growth, and helps manage external risks in an ever-changing global regulatory and geo-political environment.

Clear Guidance and Education

Our industry faces many compliance and risk challenges all over the world. Increasing regulations and geo-political risks require clear, comprehensive but concise standards to guide our stakeholders.

The Merz Aesthetics compliance program continuously strives to transform complex legal and compliance subject matter to comprehensive, easily digestible content. Efforts to accomplish this include a global online portal communicating compliance standards in multiple languages around the world. In-person educational programs and interactive online training coupled with analytics provide a window into training effectiveness. Merz Aesthetics Legal and Compliance leverages this data to constantly improve content delivery.

Timely Issue Detection and Response

Merz Aesthetics Legal and Compliance reviews data from enterprise systems, internal investigations, internal audit, and other monitoring mechanisms to detect and remediate any systemic compliance concerns. We explore new technological ways for compliance data collection and analysis for a view into policy compliance and risk management.

Merz Aesthetics also consistently promotes ways to report compliance concerns. Our culture strongly encourages people to report these concerns to management. However, we also have a robust employee helpline and compliance case management system monitored for quality and timely closure of cases.

Compliance Governance

The Merz Aesthetics Global Leadership Team comprises the Corporate Ethics and Compliance Committee, which oversees the compliance program, including governance over our Sustainability initiatives. It is chaired by the Chief Executive Officer and co-chaired by the Chief Legal Officer and Vice President of Global Compliance. The Committee supervises all program elements and supports a culture of ethics and effective management of global risk priorities. Regional compliance programs have similar structures with their leadership to ensure appropriate regional program oversight. The Chief Executive Officer, Chief Legal Officer, and Vice President of Global Compliance report on global program status to the Merz Group Managing Directors.