Skip to content

Protecting Confidential Information

Our Commitment

Through our work, we may learn facts about Hexcel’s business plans, operations, trade secrets and other confidential information. Our business partners also entrust their confidential information to us. We safeguard this information against unauthorized disclosure and misuse. We always protect our business partners’ confidential and proprietary information as we would our own.

How We Act with Integrity

  • Limit access to confidential information within Hexcel to those who need to know the information to do their jobs.
  • Be cautious in maintaining confidential information using appropriate password protection, encryption and secure storage.
  • Use secure receptacles to dispose of documents containing confidential or personal information.
  • Direct all inquiries from the financial community or for financial data to the Chief Financial Officer or Investor Relations.
  • Direct requests (other than for financial information) from the media to Corporate Communications or to the Law Department.
  • Share confidential information with current or potential business partners unless they need to know the information and an approved non-disclosure agreement has been put in place.
  • Talk about confidential information in public areas like airplanes, elevators and restaurants. This applies whether the discussion is in-person or on mobile phones or social media sites.
  • Supply financial data (including forecasts or forward-looking statements) in business proposals or other documents shared outside Hexcel without the approval of the chief financial officer.
  • Use confidential information for your personal gain or to benefit anyone outside of Hexcel.

Integrity in Action

Last week, during a business lunch with a potential supplier in a busy restaurant, my supervisor mentioned a new R&T project that Hexcel will announce in a few weeks. Luckily, the waiter came to take our order, and we never came back to the project. Would I have been right to interrupt my supervisor if I believed he was putting confidential information at risk?

You were right to be cautious. Sharing the information with the potential supplier may or may not have been a problem, depending on whether the supplier had signed a non-disclosure agreement and had a “need to know” the information. But we must be careful not to discuss confidential information in public. If the discussion continued, one way to handle it would be to suggest waiting until you all returned to the office, which would also have given you the chance to understand better whether it was appropriate to discuss the R&T project with the supplier.

Resources

Information Disclosure Policy (CP 2.1)
Hexcel Acceptable Use Policy (A.20)
Social Media and Computing Policy (CP 2.03)
Clean Desk Policy (CP 4.06)

Keep Reading

Avoiding Insider Trading

Next Section