Former Supplier Update
- Tuesday, September 9, 2025
YTY is providing this update to highlight recent developments relating to earlier allegations of certain systemic forced labor conditions (the “Allegations”) in the manufacturing operations of MediCeram Sdn. Bhd. (“MediCeram,” or the “Company”), a Malaysian supplier of ceramic formers. This update builds on our prior statement on this matter dated March 28, 2025, which is around the time we were first alerted to the Allegations.
Our relationship with MediCeram has been limited, with first commercial orders in December 2024. Last year, MediCeram comprised less than 0.5% of our total supplier spend, making them a very small part of our supply chain. After being alerted to the Allegations in March 2025, YTY suspended placing additional orders until such time as we completed our internal review and investigation.
Despite the limited relationship with MediCeram in both length and scale, upon learning of the Allegations YTY immediately engaged with the Company to review and investigate the claims. In addition to working closely with MediCeram, YTY devoted significant time and effort to regularly engage with the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) and the Responsible Glove Alliance (RGA), the latter being the arm set up by RBA to focus on forced labor matters within our industry, YTY customers, and other key stakeholders to verify the Allegations and evaluate the Company’s efforts to remediate the identified areas of concern.
As part of our commitment to remain responsibly engaged with supply partners as they work through such situations, YTY continued to honor and take delivery of existing orders that had been placed prior to us becoming aware of the Allegations, even though these deliveries have remained quarantined and unutilized at our facilities until such time as we complete our internal review and investigation. YTY also accelerated payments against any pending invoices to provide cashflow relief to MediCeram in furtherance of its ongoing remediation efforts.
Based on our sustained engagement with MediCeram in the preceding period, and the monitoring of actions undertaken by them across multiple months, we believe the Company has taken serious and credible steps to remediate the identified areas of concern and that, to the best of our knowledge at the time this statement is being issued, the Allegations have been sufficiently addressed. We have come to this conclusion based on our onsite audits, extensive review of supporting documentation, and independent and unsupervised interviews with affected employees.
In certain limited instances, the timeline to remediate a specific allegation is still underway and has yet to conclude. In all such instances, the Company has made good on its commitments till date under these respective timelines, and there is therefore a well-founded expectation that it will honor the remainder of these commitments as intended until they are concluded in the near-term.
The corrective actions undertaken by MediCeram have been independently verified by RGA based on a recent third-party forced labor audit it conducted specifically in reference to the Allegations, which has been shared with us with consent. Additionally, certain customers of ours, who have also independently evaluated the measures taken by MediCeram to address the Allegations, concur with our conclusions.
Given our determination, and based on our supplier risk assessment framework, we are now able to commercially reengage with MediCeram. We therefore expect to resume placing orders shortly with MediCeram, and will seek to provide advance payment and other forms of financial assistance to reasonably support the Company from a commercial standpoint.
YTY remains actively involved in supplier evaluations and compliance assessments around forced labor matters. Our efforts center around training, risk assessments, and on-site audits to ensure those that we procure from are committed to sound employment practices and appropriate levels of employee welfare.
We will continue to hold our suppliers accountable to the elevated standards of professional conduct we expect from them, which are clearly documented and communicated. Through our ongoing actions, commitment to, and efforts with, our supply chain partners, YTY looks forward to remaining an agent of positive change for our industry in the area of forced labor.
