Complaints to National Contact Points
Contents
Complaints under the OECD Guidelines at a glance
The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct are international standards and recommendations from governments to companies on how to act responsibly across a range of issues such as human rights, labour rights, and the environment.
Under the guidelines, companies should identify, prevent, mitigate and remedy human rights and environmental impacts across their own operations and global value chains.
The Guidelines include a government-backed grievance mechanism through OECD National Contact Points (NCPs) that handle complaints if companies are not fulfilling their obligations. Individuals, communities, workers, trade unions, and civil society organisations can submit complaints (‘specific instances’), when they think a company has not followed the Guidelines.
The OECD Guidelines are not legally binding, which means implementation and NCP enforcement can be weak. However, together with the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), they provide for a widely accepted and widely applicable international standard for responsible business conduct. There is a global consensus that companies should follow it.
Which companies fall under the OECD Guidelines?
The Guidelines set standards for all companies, but complaints can only be filed against two types of multinational companies:
1. multinational companies headquartered in a country that follows the OECD Guidelines
OR
2. multinational companies operating in or from a country that follows the OECD Guidelines
Countries adhering to the OECD Guidelines
All 38 OECD member countries adhere to the Guidelines:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States
There are currently 14 additional countries that follow the Guidelines even though they are not OECD member:
Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mauritius, Peru, Romania, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uruguay
What are companies expected to do?
Companies are expected to respect internationally recognised human rights and environmental standards. They should undertake due diligence to identify, analyse, cease, prevent, mitigate and remedy negative impacts they are involved in through their operations, subsidiaries and business relationships across global value chains. Where companies cannot tackle all risks at once, they should prioritise the most severe and likely to address those first.
Companies do not have to guarantee prevention of all possible harms in their supply chains, but they should take all necessary, effective and appropriate measures. What constitutes ‘appropriate’ depends on whether the company causes, contributes to, or is merely linked to a risk or harm, among other factors. This is in line with the UNGPs’ Involvement Framework.
Where a company is linked to abuse caused by another entity in its value chain, such as a direct or indirect supplier, it should at the very least use its leverage to ensure the entity addresses the harm and provides remedy. The company should also assess whether it is contributing to such harm e.g. through unrealistic production quotas or price pressure. Persistent ignorance of supply chain risks that the company has identified, or should have identified, can also mean mere linkage becomes contribution to abuse. The Guidelines are clear in obligating companies to provide for or cooperate in remedy for harms they have caused or contributed to.
The Guidelines and accompanying due diligence guidance apply to all major areas of responsible business conduct, specifically: disclosure, human rights, employment and industrial relations, environment, combating bribery and corruption, consumer interests, science, technology and innovation, competition, and taxation.
Expectations on companies in selected areas covered by the Guidelines
Human rights
Companies should:
- respect human rights – including all internationally recognise human rights as well as relevant domestic laws and regulations;
- prevent, mitigate and address human rights harms
- carry out human rights due diligence
- publish a human rights policy;
- provide or cooperate in remedy where they caused or contributed to harm;
- engage meaningfully with affected people.
Workers' rights
Companies should:
- Respect workers' rights to organise and bargain collectively.
- Eliminate child labour and forced labour.
- Ensure equal opportunity and non-discrimination.
- Provide safe and healthy working conditions.
- Respect fundamental labour rights throughout operations.
- Train workers on environmental, health and safety issues.
Environment
Companies should:
- Manage and reduce environmental impacts across their operations;
- Conduct environmental due diligence and risk assessments.
- Set and monitor environmental targets.
- Engage affected stakeholders.
- Prevent, mitigate and remediate environmental harm.
- Improve environmental performance and support sustainable products and practices.
For expectations in other areas covered by the Guidelines, including:
- Indigenous Peoples' rights;
- land rights;
- technology;
see OECD Watch’s overview (on which previous examples are based).
What can I do if a company does not meet the standards?
Any individual, group, community, union or organisation can file a complaint with a National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines if they think the company has not met the standards under the Guidelines.
What are NCPs?
National Contact Points (NCPs) are government offices that have two mandates:
- Raise awareness about the Guidelines’ standards and grievance mechanisms
- Handle complaints filed against companies.
There can be differences in how NCPs are operated, because the Guidelines allow flexibility for countries to adjust them to their domestic situation, but they should “function equally” to accomplish their mandate.
Generally, NCPs must operate in was that are visible, accessible, transparent, accountable, impartial and equitable, predictable, and compatible with the Guidelines. OECD Watch evaluates NCPs annually against 38 key performance indicators, such as case-handling procedures, complaint timeline, complainant anonymity and stakeholder involvement in complaints. This can be helpful information for rights- and stakeholders that consider filing a complaint.
OECD Watch divides the complaints process into seven stages:
1. Deciding to file
First, you should assess whether the OECD Guidelines apply to your case and whether this supports your strategy and goals.
Any individual, group or organisation with an interest in the issues can file a complaint. This includes community members, collective movements, workers, NGOs, trade and labour unions. You don’t need to be a citizen of the country where the NCP is located.
Since the Guidelines are very broad, most issues are covered. If you think the company failed one of the standards under the Guidelines, you can file a complaint. This is possible for harms not properly addressed by a company, harms currently occurring, or harms that may occur in the future.
You can also file a complaint with an NCP at the same time you engage with a court, tribunal or complaint mechanism on the same issue. This is called parallel proceedings. Click here to learn more.
For this phase, OECD Watch suggests you consider all strengths and limitations and possible outcomes of a complaint before you decide to file:
NCP complaints can provide an accessible, flexible, and dialogue-based avenue to seek remedy for corporate harm.
At the same time, since the Guidelines and process are non-binding, outcomes depend heavily on company cooperation and the effectiveness of the relevant NCP.
2. Preparing and filing
a. Preparing
It is important to collect evidence, decide which claims to raise against which companies and which NCP to file to:
Against whom can a complaint be filed?
You can file a complaint against one or more companies that are connected to the harm, but the company must be headquartered in one of the 52 countries that follow the Guidelines OR the harm must have occurred in a country that follows the Guidelines. For this, it is helpful to map what companies are involved and what corporate relationships exist (e.g. between parent companies, subsidiaries, joint ventures, financers, supply chain partners, other business relationships).
To which NCP should you file?
An important part is to decide which NCP to file to: generally, complaints should be filed at the NCP of the country where the issues occurred, or alternatively the country where the company involved in the risk or harm is headquartered. This option can especially be considered if the host country does not follow the Guidelines or has no NCP. If the host and home countries have NCPs, you can also decide to file the complaint to both.
OECD Watch ranks NCPs based on their responsiveness. This information can be useful when deciding where to file a complaint and whether to submit it to one or multiple NCPs. Click here to learn more.
You should be clear on what you want from the company. Possible outcomes can be:
- Change in policies or specific practices
- Prevention of harm
- Remediation of adverse impacts
You should also be clear on how you want the NCP to act. This depends, for example, on safety considerations. The NCP can, among other action:
- Facilitate mediation
- Conduct fact-finding
- Assess compliance
- Issue recommendations
b. Filing
You can file the complaint via email or post.
At a minimum, complaints must include:
- The identity of the complainants
- The alleged violations
- Specification of the company/companies and its/their involvement in the issue
- The provision(s) of the OECD Guidelines allegedly breached
- Evidence supporting each alleged violation
- Demands of the enterprise(s)
- Specific requests to the NCP
OECD Watch has developed a template that CSOs can use to write a clear, complete, concise and persuasive complaint. It is also available in French and Spanish.
3. Coordination between NCPs if the complaint is filed to multiple NCPs
If a complaint was filed to multiple NCPs, they will coordinate to decide their roles. Often, one NCP leads and others support in the process. The decision usually happens within two months after the filing.
4. Initial assessment by the NCP
The lead NCP undertakes an initial assessment to decide whether to accept the complaint. This usually happens around three months after the filing.
You can expect the NCP(s) to reach out to you and to ask for more information, or clarification of information you provided in your complaint.
What are the admissibility criteria?
There are six admissibility criteria for complaints spelled out in the Commentaries on Implementation Procedures in the OECD Guidelines, and summarised by OECD Watch as follows:
- Does the complainant have an interest in the issues?
- Are the issues covered in the Guidelines and plausible, based on sufficient and believable evidence (not necessarily certain or proven)?
- Is the company a multinational enterprise covered by the Guidelines and does it operate internationally? And is the company headquartered in a country that follows the Guidelines or does the harm occur in a country that follows the Guidelines?
- Is there a link between the company’s activities and the issues raised in the complaint?
- Is the NCP’s ability to contribute to the resolution of the issues or the company’s implementation of the Guidelines not limited by other laws or parallel proceedings?
- Would the examination of issues in the complaint contribute to the purposes and effectiveness or the Guidelines?
Since the Guidelines are not binding, companies can choose not to engage at this stage. If they decide to engage, they can respond to the complaint and provide clarifying information, or they can comment on the initial assessment statement.
5. Mediation
If the NCP accepts the complaint, it tries to support mediation to help parties agree on a solution to the issues.
At this stage, around six months after filing, you might need to attend meetings with the NCP and the company as part of the mediation.
NCPs use mediation to facilitate dialogue between complainant and company to encourage them to reach an agreement. This can include many different types of remedies, and even when no agreement is reached, the complaint process can lead to positive outcomes for complainants.
Some examples for company actions to remedy harm:
- Rehabilitate environmental damage
- Apologise publicly
- Commit to not repeat the harm
- Remedy labour rights violations, such as paying wages or rehiring workers
- Investigate and report publicly on the harms
- Repair
- Return land
- Provide monetary compensation
6. Final statement
The NCP then publishes a final statement, which may include recommendations and solutions from their investigation.
7. Follow-up
The NCP usually follows-up on any agreement reached or recommendations made one year later, at which stage complainants can raise and discuss any issues.