Compliance

The concept of compliance encompasses all measures withwhich a company ensures that laws, directives and voluntary codes of conduct are followed. Our compliance activities are focused on measures to guarantee that legal mandates such as national and international laws against criminal activities, market abuse, insider trading, money laundering and data privacy are adhered to. In addition to these diverse areas of law, the following three compliance areas are of particular importance to NOVOMATIC:

Regulatory & Legal Compliance
“Regulatory compliance” refers to compliance with the industryspecific directives issued by various gaming oversight bodies. The favorable conclusion of a licensing procedure is an absolute prerequisite for operating in a given market. Close cooperation with the authorities during verification of the licensing requirements is thus a decisive factor for success. The Regulatory Compliance Department deals with this topic and gathers all the information required for the licensing process from the parent company as well as its various subsidiaries.

Technical Compliance
In addition, the authorities define a series of (in some cases very specific) technical requirements for gaming machines, compliance with which must also be precisely monitored. In addition to various technical specifications, the machines must also provide adequate protection against manipulation. Before products can be offered and used on the various international markets, they must first undergo indepth testing by independent, accredited testing laboratories to check whether the hardware and software of our products meet the specifications of the markets in question. Successful completion of such a test is confirmed by an appropriate certificate.

Compliance Partner Check & Due Dilligence
Compliance is not limited solely to our Group itself, but rather also extends to potential business partners. Especially before new partnerships are entered into or interests in a company are acquired, an extensive compliance background check is performed in order to exclude risks right from the start. Our business partners must also accept and implement our compliance requirements.

Data Privacy
In the 2010 fiscal year, the focus of activities in the area of data privacy was on the further development of effective organizational structures with regard to data privacy in order to ensure confidential handling of information concerning our employees, customers, suppliers and third parties, thus further strengthening the trust placed in our Company. Based on the defined privacy requirements for the information used at NOVOMATIC AG and its subsidiaries, a Groupwide data privacy policy has been formulated, which – on the basis of data privacy principles – lays out the rules governing the reliability of data usage and data transmissions as well as the procedure for reporting to the Austrian Data Protection Commission. In addition, our data privacy policy includes a process description pertaining to fulfillment of the duty to inform and the rights of concerned parties to information, correction, deletion and objection. In addition, organizational steps and measures for the further optimization of data protection are presented. With regard to the website, the necessary modifications pursuant to an amendment to the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications were appropriately implemented and a data privacy statement drawn up which describes how data are processed on the websites in greater detail and accounts for the user’s right to obtain information based on the legal provisions currently in force.