There are not many meetings where corporate competitors get together to discuss how to improve their business operations in China.  Beijing Ethics Network (BEN) is one such forum.  On 25 June at 2pm about twenty CEO’s, Ethics Officers, Risk and Compliance managers and other interested parties met at Covington and Burling’s office to discuss how to improve the ethical operation of our companies in Beijing.  Beijing Ethics Network (BEN) is a group of Managers and Government officials involved in the ethical operation of their companies/departments in China.  BEN members meet on a monthly basis at a group member’s office to discuss topics such as gifts and bribes, ethical media relations, multinational workforce management and incident resolution.  The vision statement is “A group of ethics practitioners from MNC’s sharing, listening and helping each other improve the ethical operation of their companies in China”.

On June 25, we hosted two speakers; Mr Wang, Vice-Mayor of Shandong and CEO of the Charitarian magazine and David Cox, Head of the Competition practice at DLA Piper, Asia.  You may already notice that it is atypical for one law firm to host a speaker from another law firm, but that is the sort of equal opportunity experience for which BEN is renowned.  Mr Wang’s candid comments on the commitment of multinationals to CSR and David Cox’s overview of competition law in Asia stimulated a great deal of debate.  I felt it was useful that we could at least learn from each other about the methodical thinking of large matrixed MNC’s versus the requirements of the Government for timely and sensitive response to social issues.  We did not reach exact conclusions but at least we left with a better understanding of each others issues.  This is a beginning.

Mr Wang is in an interesting position.  He is a successful media entrepreneur who now works for the Government.  He is also the CEO of the Charitarian magazine that profiles the work of top philanthropists in China.  His key messages were:

•    Approach to CSR must be aligned with the Government’s need to boost GDP
•    CSR has a bright future as it is supported by Government and shareholders
•    Breakthrough for CSR in China was post-Sichuan when RMB 65 BN was donated in six months
•    Chinese companies increasingly focus on CSR promoted by Charitarian magazine

Each BEN meeting tackles a different ethics related topic. BEN started three years ago following a discussion at an AMCHAM seminar in Beijing.  At the meeting on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, I asked a question about contributions to Government charities in China resulting in political introductions being perceived as bribes.  Following the discussion, Lew Hustead of Boeing, shared experience of how he had run an ethics group in Seattle to deal with such issues.  Subsequently, Hustead and Pearson established the BEN group in Beijing with Jianhua Lu, Head of Ethics and Compliance for Motorola, China.  The Group started meeting at Boeing’s offices.

I became involved with BEN because I was keen to learn from the experience of those who had worked in highly matrixed organisations in many different countries for a number of years.  For example when I met Lew Hustead at AMCHAM I realised that during his 28 years in internal investigations and ethics at Boeing he had basically established a system of internal reporting absent from most MNC’s.  As companies grow they can easily fragment.  It is difficult to build relationships of trust across time zones.  Trust makes international business viable and BEN teaches you how to build it in your company in China.

Everyone from the group is from a different company but they have common issues.  We meet under non-disclosure agreement so that people can air concerns that can be dealt with in confidence.  It is rare that someone raises an issue of international law or ethics that someone else in the group has not previously encountered and can therefore counsel on.  It is not just the real time meetings that are of value, but the friendships cultivated in the group mean that you have people ‘on call’ with whom to discuss matters related to international business at any time.

June 25, 2009
By Clare Pearson