Compliance Framework

At Pangea, compliance is embedded at the core of our offering and our work is supported internally by a dedicated team of Compliance professionals.

In order to consult, we require members of our ‘Network of Experts’ to sign a legally binding document, which demonstrates their commitment to consulting ethically and only on appropriate topics for them.

You can request to review the Terms and Conditions for membership in Pangea’s Network of Experts. Five key points run through the document:

1. Experts must check their employment and consulting contracts to ensure that they are eligible to join Pangea’s Network of Experts.

2. Experts must decline to participate in any project that would represent any violation of agreements or contracts to which they are already bound.

3. If an Expert is participating in a consultation that strays into an inappropriate area, Experts should terminate the consultation immediately and notify Pangea. We pay Experts for the time they set aside, so they still receive their fee.

4. Experts must provide information, not direct advice. However, they must not provide any confidential or material non-public information.

5. Experts must maintain confidentiality, and not discuss their consulting engagements through Pangea outside of the consultation itself.

 

Experts are required to undergo training and update their eligibility status every year. Part of this is the Expert Compliance Training, which all Experts must undertake and ensures Experts are cognizant of what is and is not appropriate for them to consult on.

Identifying relevant expertise for our clients has been the heart of Pangea’s service for almost a decade. We have an enormous amount of experience when it comes to qualifying a professional’s capabilities. As part of this, internally, we train Pangea staff to actively seek out any conflicts potential Experts may have, rather than try to avoid them. This applies generally when professionals join our Network of Experts, and is then re-visited in specific detail when they are being considered for a project. We rule Experts out of projects that are not suitable for them.

We allow Clients to implement their own protocols on projects. They may seek anonymity or double-blinded consultations, for example. Beyond screening questions specially set for each project, Clients can apply additional, customised compliance criteria.

We review publicly available compliance policies and try to speak to compliance professionals at both clients and non-clients to determine whether employees are eligible to engage in independent consulting. If we have evidence that a company does not permit its employees to engage in independent consulting projects, then we will not solicit their participation in Pangea’s Network of Experts. This is part of a proactive approach to ensure that we are doing everything we can to facilitate consultations that fall within the corporate governance guidelines of the industries we cover. No Expert is ever permitted to participate in discussions on their current employer or discuss their current employer on a consultation. This is most relevant to those employed full time by businesses. However, we also check thoroughly with independent consultants to ascertain whether they are committed to any agreements which may prevent them from participating in certain projects.

All of these processes are designed to protect our Clients; our Experts; Pangea; and the wider interests of those in the Energy and Research industries. In applying a cautious approach with several active layers of filtering, we can provide a valuable service with utmost safety.

Please email [email protected] if you have any questions or would like to learn.