Governance
Winking Studios firmly recognized that maintaining and strengthening a firm, robust market presence is pivotal for asserting leadership within the dynamic gaming industry. This allows significant contributions to the economic development in local areas or communities where it operates. Winking Studios measures these contributions in terms of our approach towards remunerations and local hiring. Winking Studios promotes equality to all regardless of gender, through offering fair, equal entry-level wages across Singapore, Taiwan, Shanghai, and Nanjing. Excluding Singapore, Taiwan, Shanghai, and Nanjing adopt a minimum wage scheme.
For other workers (excluding Winking Studios’ employees), Winking Studios ensures that these workers are paid above the minimum wage through verification actions of compliance with legal minimum wage requirements and ensures workers’ salaries exceed the minimum wage as stipulated by the law. On top of that, Winking Studios embraces local hiring, as we embody the principles of social responsibility through reducing local unemployment, alleviating poverty, and raising gross domestic product (GDP), environmental stewardship through mitigating the environmental footprint associated with commuting and transport, and sustainable development.
This sets a strong foothold for Winking Studios to enhance ESG performance, strengthen community relationships, and drive positive socio-economic outcomes for all stakeholders.
Ethical conduct and unwavering integrity lie at the core of Winking Studios’ operational ethos. The vital importance of upholding the top standards of business conduct and ethics, and the highest moral standards in all facets of the Group’s operations are emphasized deeply to all employees. Winking Studios is also strongly dedicated to complying with all laws and regulations related to corruption of any nature in the relevant jurisdictions. To first set a strong foundation and create firm awareness of the matter, all governance body members, which constitute The Board and Executive Officers (Singapore: 6, Taiwan: 1), have the anti-corruption policies and procedures communicated to them and received the relevant training.
Winking Studios believes that the Group’s business partners and clients should align with Winking Studios’ business ethics and anti-corruption code and thus for FY2023, for Nanjing, Winking Studios has communicated the Group’s anti-corruption policies and procedures to 55 of 188 business partners
In addition, for FY2023, in Singapore, Taiwan, Shanghai and Nanjing, there has been no public cases or confirmed incidents of corruption of any nature brought against the Company or its employees, whereby for instance, employees were dismissed or disciplined, or when contracts with business partners were terminated or not renewed for corruption-related violations. Furthermore, there has been zero significant instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations for which either fines or non-monetary sanctions were incurred.
The Board regularly reviews and improves its business and operational activities to identify areas of significant business risks as well as determine the Company’s levels of risk tolerance and risk policies as well as overseeing the Management in the design, implementation and monitoring of the risk management and internal control systems to control, manage and mitigate these risks. The Management reviews the risk management and internal control systems and highlights all significant matters to the Audit Committee and Board from time to time. The Board acknowledges that it is responsible to ensure that the Company maintains an adequate system of risk management and internal controls to safeguard the assets of the Group. In addition, it is essential to maintain adequate accounting records, develop and maintain an effective control environment within the Group.
The Board recognizes that all internal control systems contain inherent limitations and no system of internal controls could provide absolute assurance against the occurrence of material errors, poor judgment in decision-making, human error, losses, fraud or other irregularities. Nevertheless, the Board strives to identify key risk areas in every aspect of the Group and improve internal controls to mitigate such risks in order to achieve the overall business objective of the Group and enhance long-term shareholders’ value. The Board, with the concurrence of the Audit Committee, is of the opinion that the Group’s internal controls (including financial, operational, compliance and information technology risks) and risk management systems are adequate and effective for FY2023. Winking had established the internal audit function before listing on the SGX-ST. The Group conducts and reviews the adequacy and effectiveness of the Group’s internal controls on a regular basis in light of the size and complexity of the Group’s operations. The Group regularly or irregularly reports to the audit committee and the board of directors.
In preparation for listing, the Company engaged Baker Tilly Consultancy (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. as the internal auditors and held discussions on internal controls. Following the listing, the Company was in the process of sourcing for a suitable internal auditor to conduct and review the adequacy and effectiveness of the Group’s internal controls on a regular basis in light of the size and complexity of the Group’s operations. The Audit Committee and the Board also review the effectiveness of the actions taken by the Management on the recommendations made by the internal auditors in preparation for the listing. The Audit Committee, with the participation of the Board, has reviewed the adequacy and effectiveness of the Group’s internal controls that address financial, operational, compliance and information technology risks and risk management systems for the type and volume of business that the Group currently operates. The Board would ensure that there is an on-going process for identifying, evaluating and managing significant risks covering financial aspects, compliance risks and other operational areas of the Group.
The Board recognizes that the risk management and internal control systems established by the Group provide reasonable, but not absolute, assurance that the Group will not be adversely affected by any event that can be reasonably foreseen as it strives to achieve its business objectives. The Board and the Audit Committee of the Company held the view that the review of the Group’s risk management and internal controls systems could be subsumed under the Audit Committee.
To safeguard the rights and interests of stakeholders, promote communication and most importantly, uphold corporate governance, Winking Studios formulated a whistleblowing reporting mechanism for anonymous reporting to not only handle any incidents of corporate governance violations, fraud, corruption, or criminal matters by the company personnel, but also receive suggestions to strengthen corporate governance. This encourages transparency, accountability, and ethical behavior while mitigating risk associated with misconduct or wrongdoing.
Safeguarding the sanctity of information and preservation all stakeholders’ privacy rights stand as paramount imperatives at Winking Studios. Winking Studios places utmost emphasis in the protection of sensitive information of employees, business partners, clients, and vendors, on top of trade secrets for the Group’s competitive advantage.
Winking Studios was awarded the ISO 27001 certification by BSI British standards institution. To maintain, enforce and protect information security and data access and privacy, anti-virus software and firewall are installed on all company devices and undergo automatic updates. Vulnerability testing is performed periodically, ensuring that the Group proactively identifies weaknesses and security flaws within all systems, networks, applications, and infrastructure to assess Winking Studios’ overall cybersecurity posture, mitigate potential risks, and strengthen information technology defenses against
cyber threats and attacks.
An incident reporting protocol is also established internally, to ensure that employees are aware on the necessary steps should there be any cyber-related incidents, and to manage any potential data leakage. Employees also undergo cyber security training to foster awareness and knowledge on cyber threats, data breaches, and the crucial importance of data protection and privacy.
In FY2023, there have been zero significant instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations in relation to data privacy, of which either fines or non-monetary sanctions were incurred, in Singapore, Taiwan, Shanghai and Nanjing.
By steadfastly ensuring information security and data privacy while incorporating ESG philosophies, Winking Studios strives to engender stakeholder confidence, bolster organizational resilience, and mitigate risk and ESG impacts associated with cyber threats and data breaches.
