Regulatory Frameworks Affecting Woolworths Limited in Australia
A company needs a legal and regulatory framework to operate the trade or business. The law of international trade consists some specific customers, standards and rules for handling the trade between two or more nations. Conversely, research says that it is illegal to sell between to private sectors or private organisations. Today, in this world of politics it is very significant for the organisations to sign treaties and conventions with the government of that country to avoid any legal issues in future business. The essay is based on the regulatory frameworks along with treaties and agreements of a chosen organisation (Davies, 2017). An international trade should be identified and distinguished from a broader point of view regarding the international economic law. Besides that, businesses are expected to fully comply with the federal and state safety regulations, environmental laws, civil right laws as well as economic and financial reporting edicts. Regulatory frameworks such as company’s code of conduct, policy securities trading, policy of diversity, health and safety policy and communication policy are very significant to operate a smooth business. Moreover, terms and conditions, treaties and agreements are signed by the individuals are willing to join the business firm. Agreements such as salary scale, incentives, penalties, overtime, late start and many others need to be followed by the employees.
An Australian company named Woolworths Limited is a retailing organisation with extensive retail interest all over the New Zealand and Australia. In simple words, the organisation operates in the retail industry. Woolworths Limited was founded in the year 1924 on 22nd September. It is a public sector company, and the founders of the organisation are Percy Christmas, George Creed, Ernest Williams, Stanleydghjjj Chatterton and Cecil Scott Waine. The global headquarter is located in Bella Vista in New South Wales of Australia (Ngwakwe, 2014). The service of Woolworths Limited spreads over Australia, India and New Zealand. Moreover, the company is the largest takeaway of liquor seller in Australia. From a revenue research on this endeavour, it has been found that Woolworths has fifty-nine billion Australian dollar turnover during the year 2016 and its operation income is nearly two billion Australian dollar in the same year. During the year 2011, the number of employees working in the company are 202,000. The organisation has operated its flagship store in Sydney CBD. The working group of Woolworths Limited is committed to ensuring that the practices and policies in the critical areas of remuneration reporting, corporate governance and financial reporting meet high levels of agreement as well as disclosure. On 1st September of 2015, Mr Gordon Cairns was appointed as the Chairman of the company. In Woolworths Limited, each of the non-executive directors is appointed to at least one committee. In the sustainable committee, Scott Perkins is the chairman, and Holly Kramer is the chairman of People Policy Committee (Smith, Heley and Stafford, 2011).
Code of Conduct
The Board is made out of a predominant some percentage of self-ruling non?executive directors. These non-executive directors join with the Chief Executive Officer and have an appropriate combination of capacities to give the extreme breadth, significance of learning and experience to meet the objectives and obligations of the board. Besides that, the board sees that having an extent of different aptitudes, experience, as well as establishments, are addressed among its directors, and it is a key to ensuring responsible decision-making and the proper administration of the Woolworths Group (Sommer and de Miranda Oliveira Junio, 2016). Moreover, the board just outlooks directors as self-ruling where they are free of authorization and free of any business or other relationship that could unmistakably intrude with, or could sensibly be seen to considerably interfere with the capacity of the director to bring an independent judgment to bear on issues before the board. Any manager who thinks that they may have a beyond reconciliation condition or an individual material excitement for any matter concerning the company is required to articulate in a flash this potential hostile situation for board review.
The regulatory frameworks which impact Woolworths Limited are a code of conduct, continuous disclosure policy and other policies such as securities trading, diversity policy, health and safety as well as communications policy (Svensson and Wagner, 2011). Some of these policies are discussed below:
- Based on appropriate workplace behaviour, the employees are expected to act honestly when they raise a complaint, and if that person becomes involved in the enquiry, the person is required to keep the discussed matter private. Moreover, the employees are anticipated not to persecute or else disadvantage anybody as a consequence of making an objection (Svensson and Wagner, 2011).
- According to the conflict of interest in the workplace, the employees of Woolworths must do business with the organisations in which Woolworths or its families of their employees have significant interest. Additionally, the employees should have an immediate family member hired by a direct competitor in a senior role (The New Regulatory Concerns and Regulatory Management, 2012).
- According to the diversity policy, the company is dedicated to an inclusive workplace that embraces as well as encourages diversity. Moreover, Woolworths Limited value, leverage and also respect the unique influences of people who came from a diverse background, perspectives as well as experiences.
- Diversity policy also let the organisation recognise as well as celebrate their multicultural diversity and increase their workforce. Apart from it, the organisation must incrementally grow the number of women performing their senior roles (Obiri, 2016). Woolworths Limited must provide people with the opportunities of disability employment along with the career improvement.
- According to health and safety policy in Woolworths, the company is committed to the health, wellbeing and safety of their team members, contractors, visitors, customers and business partners (Waterson, 2016). Also, the vision of the company is to make their workplace a safe place to shop and work.
- The health and safety policy is also concerned with the risk management of Woolworths so as to prevent any illness or injuries. Aside from, the organisation is committed to complying with the external requirements, laws and their processes (Walters, 2005).
- Based on the communication policy, the members of Woolworths Limited have the responsibility to ensure that all potential investors along with the shareholders must communicate properly with each other and keep an updated information about the business (Davy, Jennings and Strassner, 2008).
- Communication policy also recommends Woolworths to hold an annual general meeting where the stakeholders, business partners, customers and employees can put their feedbacks and issues of business. The shareholders can lodge proxies electronically (May, 2009).
Now, some treaties, agreements and conventions are discussed here which impact the services and products of the company.
FTA or the Free Trade Agreement are international treaties that help the organisations from all over the world to reduce the barriers to investment and trade. FTA are one of the best ways to have an opportunity to do foreign market to the exporters of Australia. Moreover, free trade agreements also protect the interest of Australia and increase the rule of law in the FTA partner nations (Mansell and Raboy, 2014). FTA is useful for Australian organisations like Woolworths Limited. It gives Australian access to significant markets. The FTA of Australia also provides an improved competitive position for the exports of Australia. Besides that, it also offers reduced costs in importing service for the consumers and business of Australia. At last, it provides more prospects for increased two-way investments. FTA has its beneficiary sides. It fosters freer trade flows as well as create stronger relationships with their partners associated in the trading business. Additionally, it promotes provincial economic assimilation and also builds complementary approaches to investment and trade. Woolworths can get a better buying opportunity by implementing FTA (Sheehy, 2017). Woolworths can increase their productivity and contribute to higher Growth Domestic Product or GDP by allowing the private business access to cheaper inputs by the introduction of innovative technology, innovation and fostering competition.
Diversity Policy
Employment treaties or the employment agreements can be of two types such as common work conventions and private employment treaties. According to the employment agreements of Australia, all the Australian employees will have a common law contract of employment which stipulates the conditions and terms with their employer about the business. The contract provided to the employee is subjected to the government of Australia (Lewchuk, Clarke and de Wolff, 2008). The agreement of employment is based on the workplace agreement which is a statement of mutual responsibilities and rights approved between a group of employees and an employer. Aside from, these treaties and conventions allow businesses to set conditions regarding employment and are tailored to the firm. Woolworths can foster a positive relationship between the employee and the employer by implementing the employment treaty. The particular convention can provide a sense of security and stability if the agreement lists the time frame for the period of employment in Woolworths (Hoekman and Mavroidis, 2016).
The particular trade is commonly referred to as the TBT Agreement. Besides, this trade is an international treaty and conventions that are managed by WHO or the World Trade Organizations. Moreover, this deal was last renegotiated during the general agreement on trade and tariff and the Uruguay round. The agreement on technical barriers denies particular necessities made remembering the actual objective to limit trade, contrasting to specific requirements made for authentic purposes. For example, environmental protection and customers (Hoekman and Mavroidis, 2016). If Woolworths implements this business, they can ensure the technical testing, certifications, regulations and standards procedures and avoid obstacles which help them to avoid any political obstacles from the government of Australia. Honestly, its inspiration is to keep up an essential separation from pointless masses to general trade and to offer verification to all people of WTO for securing well reasonable interests as shown by the managerial self-administration. The once-over of honest to goodness interests that can legitimise a restriction in return is not careful, and it consolidates protection of condition, animal and human health and safety.
According to the partnership agreement, the partners of Woolworths should ascend to rights in the enterprise of the company business. The agreement also states that each partner may submit his entire time to the direct of the firm. All advantages of the partnership should be kept in its name in such money related records or records as may be doled out by the partners. Also, all withdrawals are to be made upon checks set apart by either partner (Bayya, 2017). The partnership capitals shall be contributed in cash form by the partners. Moreover, the partnership may be separated at whatever point by agreement of the partners, in which event the partners should proceed with a sensible quickness to trade the matter of the partnership. Apart from it, the partnership name may be sold with exchange assets of the business. Upon the death of either partner, the surviving partner may have the benefit either to purchase the energy of the decedent in the partnership or to end and offer the company in business.
Health and Safety Policy
It is easy to apply the international trade laws and regulations in an organisation, but it is tough to implement it for long-term business. During the implementation period, the companies have to face different issues which affect the ongoing business severely. Besides, international trade meets different types of obstacles which lead to the reduction of business incentives. Some of the restrictions in international trade are taxes, quotas and tariffs. According to research from NAFTA or North American Free Trade Agreement, agriculture is excluded from the NAFTA agreement, and a controversy was spread around (Bayya, 2017). The Canadians have frequently objected to this particular deal because the FDI of United States employs hostile takeovers. The agreement demonstrates some of the validity behind the isolationism and protectionism of trade. The essay concludes that the regulatory frameworks along with treaties and agreements are significant for running a business. However, an international trade should be identified and distinguished from a broader point of view regarding the international economic law. The working group of Woolworths Limited should be committed to ensuring that the practices and policies in the critical areas of remuneration reporting, corporate governance and financial reporting meet high levels of agreement as well as disclosure.
References
Bayya, S. (2017). Understanding Technical Barriers toTrade Agreement. International Journal of Drug Regulatory Affairs, 5(1), pp.25-29.
Davies, G. (2017). The Legal Framework of Regulatory Competition. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Davy, S., Jennings, B. and Strassner, J. (2008). The policy continuum–Policy authoring and conflict analysis. Computer Communications, 31(13), pp.2981-2995.
Hoekman, B. and Mavroidis, P. (2016). A Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement for Services?. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Lewchuk, W., Clarke, M. and de Wolff, A. (2008). Working without commitments: precarious employment and health. Work, Employment & Society, 22(3), pp.387-406.
Mansell, R. and Raboy, M. (2014). The handbook of global media and communication policy. 1st ed. Malden (MA): Wiley-Blackwell.
May, R. (2009). New directions in communications policy. 1st ed. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.
Ngwakwe, C. (2014). Corporate Social Investment– Good BUSINESS and Good Revenue: The Case of Woolworths Holdings Ltd South Africa. Risk Governance and Control: Financial Markets & Institutions, 4(4).
Obiri, C. (2016). UK Banking Regulatory and Market Framework. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Smith, R., Heley, J. and Stafford, I. (2011). Woolworths and Wales: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of the Loss of a Local Brand. Sociological Research Online, 16(1).
Sommer, P. and de Miranda Oliveira Junio, M. (2016). Network Approach for Multinational Corporations: An Exploratory Research in a Multinational Audit Company. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Svensson, G. and Wagner, B. (2011). Business sustainability: frameworks and cases. European Business Review, 23(4).
The New Regulatory Concerns and Regulatory Management. (2012). China-USA Business Review, 11(09).
Walters, D. (2005). More Consequences of Globalisation for Health and Safety Policy and Practice?. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 3(2), pp.1-2.
Waterson, P. (2016). Bridging the gap between research, policy and practice in health and safety. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 14(2), pp.97-98.
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