D4. Fair Business, Advertising and Competition

Code 8.0

Standards of fair business, advertising, and competition are to be upheld.

Elements to Demonstrate Compliance to RBA Code

1. Controls & Monitoring

D4.1 No identified risk or evidence of non-conformance with fair business, advertising, and competition standards.

Conformance is demonstrated through record review:

• a. Grievance records (internal and external) do not reveal any allegations of fair business, advertising, or competition.
  • i. Any allegation of fair business, advertising, or competition is investigated, and action is taken if the allegation is substantiated.

2. Audit Method

• Record Review: Grievance records (internal and external) and related investigation records.
• Management Interview: Applicable.
• Worker Interview: Staff who influence purchase decisions.
• Site Observations: Not applicable.

3. Rating

Remote Verification Acceptable: Yes

2.0.0 (2022-06-01)

Changed

• Replaced the policy-adequacy test with a mandatory grievance-records evidence test: The rating determinant changed from a policy-adequacy test (7.0.0 Major = 'No detailed and understandable policy and procedures implemented' for anti-collusion safeguards and monitoring) to a grievance-records evidence test: grievance records (internal and external) must not reveal any allegations of fair business, advertising, or competition, and any such allegation must be investigated with action taken if substantiated. This new mandatory evidentiary condition did not exist in 7.0.0: a facility that passed 7.0.0 on the strength of a detailed anti-collusion policy would FAIL 7.1.2 if its grievance records reveal a substantiated (or un-investigated) allegation — a prior pass can become a fail, hence major. Rating bands were genericised to 'See finding severity definition'. The 7.1.2 and 8.0.0 rule text is audit-equivalent (only preposition, punctuation, and wording differ), so both VAP releases share this version.

1.0.0 (2021-01-01)

Changed

• Initial historical baseline — Fair Business, Advertising and Competition (RBA Code of Conduct 7.0, provision D5): Earliest imported version of the criterion (published as provision D5 in VAP 7.0.0). Conformance rested on an adequate and effective policy and procedures ensuring fair business, advertising, and competition standards are upheld, including safeguards to prevent collusion with other companies on product pricing or other factors that could reduce competition, and monitoring procedures. Rated purely on documentary policy completeness (Major = 'No detailed and understandable policy and procedures implemented'; Minor = 'Partial policy or procedures or implementation'; Priority = Not Applicable).