Modern slavery act transparency statement

What is the Modern Slavery Act 2015?

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the “Act”) seeks to address the role of businesses in preventing modern slavery occurring in an organisation and its supply chains. It applies to eligible businesses and requires them to publish a statement setting out the steps they have taken to ensure that modern slavery and any form of human trafficking is not present in their business or supply chains.  

Introduction 

This statement sets out the steps the Fastmarkets Group has taken to comply with the Act. In this statement, the Fastmarkets’ Group comprises of the parent company Lithium Hangar Holdco Limited and its subsidiary companies are referred to as the “Group”. Fastmarkets is one of the most trusted cross-commodity price-reporting agency (PRA) in the agriculture, forest products, metals and mining and new generation energy markets.  

We provide price data, news and analysis from more than 200 reporters and analysts globally for markets including agriculture, energy, and metals and mining. Our data is used by customers seeking to understand and predict dynamic, sometimes opaque markets, enabling more confident trading and risk management. Fastmarkets is a global business with a 130-year history and has more than 700 employees spread across the UK, US, China, Singapore, Brazil, Belgium and Finland.

Organisational structure, business and supply chains 

To best serve our customers we require a truly global supply chain. We also recognise that responsible and ethical sourcing is key to our success. We continuously review our business operations and their supply chains in order to determine the following areas as our inherent or perceived supply chain risk:  

• event construction and operation in non-EU / non-US countries;  
• contracted maintenance staff working in the company’s offices in all locations (e.g. cleaning, catering, security, building services); 
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• outsourced operations located in high-risk countries including software developers, data and list researchers, and sales and customer services. 

Due diligence processes 

Our principal business relationships are with procurers or buyers who are in the market of the commodities we price. As a PRA business we have assessed the risk of modern slavery among our direct employees to be low. This is based on the externally available research on industries that are prone to modern slavery risks. In addition, most of our employees are low-risk roles, such as office-based positions and include roles that require specialist qualifications such as HR, accounting, economists, reports etc. 

We believe the greatest risk lies within our supply chain. Therefore, we aim to assess our modern slavery risks across the business annually though our procurement due diligence process.

In 2024 we implemented new procedures to enhance our work eligibility checking globally. As part of this we reviewed our compliance against work eligibility in our global locations and have put in place automated reminders to flag approaching via expiry dates.

Risk assessment and management 

 As a business we recognise the complexity of modern slavery concerns globally and the important need to address the risks within our business and the wider supply chain. We are also aware that the global modern slavery and human trafficking situation worsened during the pandemic and is set in the context of significant growth and changes in market dynamics. As a business our aim is to evolve by looking at ways that we can mitigate the risks and pay closer attention on how we engage with our supply chain partners.  We ensure that all suppliers are screened and remain in our system to ensure continuous monitoring.

In terms of managing risks within our businesses, the controls we have put in place as part of the recruitment, deployment of employees and consultants is key. We continue to ensure appropriately robust modern slavery compliance obligations are included in our supplier contracts, and have a zero tolerance for any supplier who cannot satisfy our requirements to ensure compliance. The support and tools available for our employees and consultants to raise concerns internally or, if preferred, via an independent confidential helpline, operated by Safecall, further helps to manage the risk of any type of abuse going undetected or unreported. Concerns can be raised anonymously 24 hours days by varying means, including a free helpline and is also available online.

Measuring effectiveness 

Fastmarkets does not employ production manual workers; however, measuring the effectiveness of our modern slavery initiatives remains crucial. We conduct thorough worker checks to ensure our staff have the legal right to work.

Policies 

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships to mitigate modern slavery and human trafficking risks within our business and our supply chains.

More broadly our code of business conduct and Speak Up policies, covering employees, consultants, and external partners, are designed to encourage the raising of genuine concerns of wrongdoing or harm across our businesses as well as raising the awareness of what to look for on issues relating to modern slavery.

Training 

Training is crucial to ensure our employees properly understand the risks of modern slavery and know how to respond within their working environment. All Fastmarkets employees are required to complete annual Code of Business Conduct training, which provides the key information on how we as a business operate including further insight to on our commitment to protecting human rights.

By delivering this training, we aim to ensure that all our employees are equipped with the knowledge and understanding necessary to prevent and combat modern slavery in all its forms. Additionally, we have in place a Speak Up portal which has improved our reporting capabilities on any issues that may pose a risk including that of modern slavery.

Compliance approach 

To monitor compliance:  

• We have a departmental risk management process led by the department head with a senior leadership team member sponsor. This process captures and addresses any areas of the business that pose a risk to our operations and people, including the risks of modern slavery within the business.
• Modern slavery statement is board reviewed and approved annually.

Looking ahead 

Next steps in mitigating modern slavery risks 2024-2025:

• Support and enable Fastmarkets’ Procurement team to review our onboarding end to end process.
• Continue the work to establish Fastmarkets’ third party code of conduct. 
• Work with the business to review the supplier lifecycle post onboarding from a due diligence perspective.
• Review how we measure our effectiveness in managing modern slavery risks, including the provisions within our supplier contracts.

Review 

We will continue to review and update our compliance approach as our businesses and inherent or perceived supplier risks change over time.  

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes the Group’s modern slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 30 September 2025.

This statement was approved by the Board of Fastmarkets in October 2025.