TÜV AUSTRIA Declaration of Principle regarding Impartiality, Independence and Integrity
The TÜV AUSTRIA Group is, on account of its size and organization of suppliers, customers, and team members, completely independent, both in terms of professional decisions and financially.
The TÜV AUSTRIA Group undertakes to comply with all national and international requirements (standards, laws, and regulations) on the operation of testing, inspection, calibration, certification, verification, and notification bodies.
The accredited testing, inspection, calibration, certification, verification, and notified bodies of the TÜV AUSTRIA Group are "Third Party", and meet national and international requirements for operating a testing laboratory, an inspection body (Type A), a calibration body, a certification authority, a verification body and a notified body.
To ensure the impartiality of services of any third party, in particular the accredited technical services (such as testing, monitoring, calibration, certification, verification, and compliance reviews), these were clearly separated from any consulting services within the TÜV AUSTRIA Group.
In addition, the accredited bodies are not involved in the design, manufacture, sale, assembly, procurement, use or maintenance of items that they assess, nor do they represent any parties involved.
Through permanent and appropriate measures (Committee to ensure impartiality, surveillance, monitoring, internal audits, regular analysis of potential conflicts of interest of accredited bodies, etc.), it is ensured by upper management that if consulting services are offered by a company of the TÜV AUSTRIA Group, accredited testing, inspection, certification, verification services will be offered or carried out by other companies of the TÜV AUSTRIA Group.
For all employees of the TÜV AUSTRIA Group, acting with integrity is a matter of course. Impartiality is supported by the complete professional operational freedom of the authorized signatory personnel in the accredited and notified areas.
Every employee has undertaken to fully disclose situations that may lead to conflicts of interest. This notification is made in such cases to the supervisor, who decides, together with the employee, and taking into account all legal and normative requirements, how the settlement of the conflict of interest is to be achieved.
Through the permanent working relationship as salaried employees in the company of the TÜV AUSTRIA Group and through an industry-compliant wage, staff payment is not dependent on the amount of testing, inspection, calibration, verification, and certification work carried out.
The services of the TÜV AUSTRIA Group are mainly provided by our own staff. If the use of contractually bound personnel or subcontracting is required, adherence to impartiality, independence and integrity is ensured to the same extent on the basis of appropriate contractual agreements and regular reviews.