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Atea Denmark will provide self-cleaning documentation to public contracting authorities, in accordance with EU legislation

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Reference is made to previous stock exchange notices with the latest notice on June 28, 2018, at 7:40am.

As stated in the prior stock exchange notice, Atea A/S (Atea Denmark) has been ordered by the district court of Glostrup to pay a penalty of DKK 10 million (NOK 13 million) following a guilty verdict against Atea Denmark in a case involving alleged bribery and embezzlement carried out by four former leading employees during a period between 2009-2014. Under Danish law, a company can be held legally responsible for actions undertaken by employees.

As stated in the prior stock exchange notice, Atea Denmark has undertaken a self-cleaning program in accordance with EU legislation. Atea Denmark will now submit the necessary documentation of its self-cleaning program to the relevant governmental bodies.

Under the EU Public Contracts Directive, a company which has been found guilty of corruption can undertake a self-cleaning program in order to avoid mandatory exclusion from participating in public tenders. The self-cleaning program allows the company to demonstrate that it has sufficiently remediated and changed its behaviour to such an extent that it can demonstrate its reliability despite the existence of a corruption conviction. The public contracting authority can then evaluate whether to accept that the organisation has “self-cleaned”.

Today, June 28, 2018, the public contracting organizations SKI and Moderniseringsstyrelsen have requested documentation regarding Atea’s self-cleaning process in accordance with EU law. This includes a demonstration that Atea Denmark has actively collaborated with the authorities investigating corruption and has taken concrete technical, organisational and personnel measures appropriate to prevent further criminal offences or misconduct.

The public contracting organizations SKI and Moderniseringsstyrelsen have recommended to public customers which purchase under their contracts that these customers wait for their final evaluation of Atea Denmark’s self-cleaning process before continuing to purchase from Atea Denmark. They further recommend that customers which have an urgent requirement for IT make purchases from Atea Denmark conditional on the evaluation of the self-cleaning process, so that thse purchases can be cancelled if necessary.

“Atea has been in close contact with Moderniseringstyrelsen and SKI since the investigation was announced in 2015, and is providing all self-cleaning documentation to these organizations. In our view, the recommendations of SKI and Moderniseringstyrelsen are an understandable and temporary measure to ensure that public purchasing is compliant with the EU Public Contracts Directive. Our objective with the self-cleaning process and other remedial action has been to provide assurance to all parties which review the self-cleaning documentation that there is no basis for excluding Atea Denmark from public procurement. We are also prepared to enable customers to make purchases conditional on the evaluation of Atea’s self-cleaning process, as recommended by the public contracting organizations,” commented Steinar Sønsteby, CEO in Atea ASA.

“Atea strives to be an industry leader in ethics and corporate social responsibility,” commented Steinar Sønsteby. “Since the summer of 2015, Atea has implemented numerous measures to prevent corruption and to ensure compliance with our Code of Conduct and the highest standards of ethics.”

These measures include the following:

  •  Atea Denmark has conducted a “self-cleaning” program in accordance with EU legislation
  •  Atea Denmark has received the highest international anti-bribery certification (ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Systems)
  •  The Atea Group has established a thorough compliance system, including comprehensive control procedures
  •  The Code of Conduct of Atea has been updated and strengthened
  •  All employees of the Atea Group are required to complete a training program and a test in ethics and the Code of Conduct – with zero tolerance for breach
  •  The anonymous whistleblower system has been strengthened for those who wish to report violations of the Code of Conduct or of relevant law
  •  A compliance committee has been established in the Board of Directors (Atea ASA)
  •  The CFO of Atea ASA, Robert Giori, has been appointed as Group Compliance Officer
  •  All business units report on compliance quarterly in order to make sure that the governance systems are working.

For further information, please contact: 

Steinar Sønsteby, CEO Atea ASA, mobile (+47) 930 55 655

About Atea 
Atea is the leading supplier of IT infrastructure and system integration in the Nordic and Baltic regions with 6,900 employees. Atea is present in 87 cities in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Atea delivers IT products from leading vendors and assists its customers with specialist competencies within IT infrastructure services. Atea had revenue of approximately NOK 32 billion in 2017 and is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange. https://www.atea.com

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