The entire top management of mdc, consisting of the management, the heads of the certification bodies, the heads of our business units and the Quality Management Representative, declares the following (2025-01-10):

• Not only legal and normative requirements, but the general character of our activity as a Notified Body and accredited certification body requires that we commit ourselves to maintain independence, objectivity, neutrality and confidentiality at all levels.
• Our employees, as well as our external staff, have committed themselves in writing to independence, objectivity, neutrality and confidentiality. For this reason, they are generally prohibited from performing advisory activities or clear limits are imposed on them within the framework of the normative requirements.
• We are not the designer, manufacturer, supplier, assembler, commercial purchaser, owner, maintainer or other operator of the products or services we evaluate.
• Our remuneration and the remuneration of our employees are neither dependent on the number nor on the results of the assessments or other conformity assessment activities carried out.
• We are free from any interests of commercial, financial or other nature, which might lead us to act in a biased or discriminatory manner. In particular, we neither own any shares, stocks, bonds or investment certificates, nor any assets or liabilities in any entity to be audited or certified (except for shares or other ownership interests in collectively managed funds over whose selection we have no control).
• We neither accept nor grant any benefits.
• All decisions on the granting of certificates are made by internal staff who were not involved in the assessment. Should a decision made by mdc regarding the granting, refusal, restriction or suspension of a certification repeatedly not be accepted, an appeals procedure is available.
• Our corporate structure, articles of association and financing via fees for our activities ensure that there are no dependencies on external funders, donors or similar that could jeopardise our independence, objectivity, neutrality and confidentiality.

Compliance with impartiality is regularly reviewed and assessed by an independent supervisory committee.