Speak Up

Who can use this channel

Anyone. Employees, contractors, suppliers, job applicants, community members, civil society organisations, journalists and people with no connection to Quintel at all. You do not need to be affected by the issue you are reporting, and you do not need proof — a reasonable belief is enough.

Community members can and do use this channel to raise issues about the operation nearest to them, including issues that the operation itself has failed to resolve. Reports made this way bypass site management entirely, which is the point.

What to report

Anything that appears to breach our code of conduct, the law, or the standards we say we hold ourselves to. In practice, that includes:

• Bribery, facilitation payments, kickbacks or conflicts of interest in procurement or permitting
• Fraud, theft, falsification of records, or manipulation of production, grade, emissions or safety data
• Unsafe work, suppressed hazard reports, or pressure on anyone to continue working in unsafe conditions
• Environmental damage or a discharge that has not been reported to the regulator
• Human rights abuse, including by public or private security forces at or around our sites
• Discrimination, harassment, bullying or sexual misconduct
• Forced or child labour anywhere in our supply chain
• Land, resettlement or compensation practices that do not match what was promised
• Retaliation against anyone who raised any of the above

Anonymity and confidentiality

You may report anonymously through the portal or the freephone line, and the portal issues a case reference that lets you return, read questions from the investigator and answer them while remaining anonymous. We do not attempt to identify anonymous reporters, and we have never asked the provider to do so.

If you give your name, it is known to the independent provider and to the chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. It is not disclosed to anyone else — including your line manager, the general manager of your site or the executive committee — unless you agree, or unless the law compels disclosure, in which case we will tell you before it happens if we are permitted to.

One honest limitation: in a small team, the substance of a report can identify the reporter even when the name is withheld. Where that risk exists, the investigator will discuss it with you before proceeding, and you may choose to stop.

Non-retaliation

Retaliation against anyone who raises a concern in good faith is itself a dismissible offence, and this applies to contractors and their supervisors as well as to employees. Good faith means you believed the information was true. A report that turns out to be mistaken is not a disciplinary matter; a report made knowingly falsely is.

In FY2025 we substantiated two retaliation allegations. In both cases the retaliating supervisor was dismissed and the affected employee reinstated with back pay. We publish that figure precisely because a company reporting zero retaliation cases either has a perfect culture or a channel nobody trusts.

What happens after you report

Every report follows the same route regardless of who it names.

1. Acknowledgement within 48 hours, with a case reference.
2. Triage within five working days by the group ethics team, or by external counsel where the report concerns a member of the executive committee.
3. Investigation by someone independent of the business unit involved. Reports naming a general manager are investigated by group; reports naming an executive are investigated by external counsel reporting to the Audit and Risk Committee chair.
4. Interim protective measures where needed — suspension, separation of the parties, or a stop-work order — applied before any conclusion is reached.
5. Outcome communicated to you, to the extent the law and the privacy of others allow. You will always be told whether the concern was substantiated and whether action followed.
6. Root cause and remedy, so the same failure does not recur. Where a person was harmed, remedy means putting them back in the position they should have been in, not an apology.
7. Reporting in aggregate to the Audit and Risk Committee every quarter, and publicly in the annual sustainability report.

FY2025 case record

Reports found unsubstantiated are not assumed to be malicious. In most cases the evidence was insufficient rather than the concern being unfounded, and we say so in the case file.