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Our initial investigations did not provide a positive result of an active business connection to Princess Power. After concluding our initial investigations on 11th May 2023, it became evident, that we were dealing with illegal sub-contracting, this means orders were outsourced to the factory Princess Power without the knowledge of NKD. As a result, we immediately initiated an internal audit at the factory though our own CSR staff and received the audit report with critical result on 22nd May 2023. Despite the audit not confirming the allegations which had been made in previous news reports, the critical result derived from a multitude of non-compliances identified in the areas of Health and Safety, Working Hours and Remuneration, such as policies and documentation. NKD issued a corrective action plan and found the factory to be very willing and cooperative to implement sustainable remediation.

As supporting activities, we provided training to factory workers and mid-level-management in local language.In one of the trainings titled “Access to and effective use of grievance mechanisms”, a representative of MCRB participated as an observer. Further trainings against the topics Wages and Benefits, Health and Safety, Fire Safety, and Electric Safety were also held.

Since our first call with MCRB further follow-up calls were held on 14th June 2023, 28th July 2023 and 08th September 2023, always keeping MCRB updated about significant progress we were making at the factory.

Until now, the factory also has never been exposed to a standard audit. As we are a member of Amfori BSCI/BEPI, we also took up Princess Power in the monitoring process and arranged an initial BSCI Audit to be conducted at the factory until end October 2023. We informed MCRB that we will of course follow-up on any non-conformities that may be identified during the BSCI audit – equally to the follow up we are conducting for our own internal audit.

To date we have made positive experiences with Princess Power, whereby appreciation of our engagement has clearly been expressed on several occasions by MCRB...Additionally, I would like to mention, that we have not heard of any further allegations concerning this factory so far and are in constant exchange with MCRB to be immediately informed in case the scenario should change.

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