United Kingdom: companies invited to submit their annual modern slavery statement to a central website

On 11 March, the UK government unveiled an online registry where companies can file their annual modern slavery statement, if they so wish. As a reminder, since 2015, commercial organisations with an annual turnover of more than £36 million (€42.03 million) have been required to publish an annual report setting out the action they are taking to combat modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking. However, until now, publishing of the annual statement has been limited to companies’ own website (see article n°9173). The aim of this platform, which the government has been promising to set up since 2019 (see article n°11220), is to centralise this information for the first time in order to improve transparency and allow both consumers and investors to easily consult and even compare what each company is doing to combat this practice. At present, submitting the annual statement to the central registry is done only on a voluntary basis, but the government has indicated it intends to reform the law as soon as possible to make it mandatory. It has also set an example by being the first to publish reports on this topic from different government departments or agencies on the platform.