Following recent US regulations aimed at addressing forced labour issues in China, the UK government has published a series of proposed amendments to strengthen and expand the transparency in supply chains provisions of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (“MSA”). With the enactment of the MSA, the United Kingdom was the first country to require large businesses to publicly report the steps they were taking to prevent modern slavery in their operations – specifically, their supply chains.
The current transparency in supply chains provisions of the MSA require commercial organisations that carry on all or part of a business in the United Kingdom and have a total annual turnover of £36 million or more to report on the steps that they have taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in their business or supply chains.
The proposed amendments, if adopted, would beef up that reporting requirement by requiring subject commercial organisations’ modern slavery statements to include provisions on certain key topics, including due diligence and risk assessment measures to encourage openness about the steps those commercial organisations are taking to operate responsibly.