Verizon’s culture, strategies and policies are identified and continually reviewed at group level by the senior executives of Verizon. The Verizon Group, which includes the Company, believe that it must effectively address and balance the interests of all of its stakeholders, including its shareholders, employees, customers, communities, suppliers and others, in order to put itself in the best position to serve its customers, provide critical services to the community and grow profitably over the long term. This belief is reflected in the breadth and aspiration of the Verizon Group’s corporate purpose to “create the networks that move the world forward”. It is also reflected in the Verizon Group’s values underlying all of the Verizon Group’s decisions: integrity, respect, performance excellence, accountability and social responsibility.
As a holding company, the Company’s principal activity is closely aligned with the Verizon Group and the directors of the Company are therefore guided by the Verizon Group’s culture, policies and strategies. The directors of the Company however recognise that their statutory duties are owed to the Company and believe when taking board decisions during the year ended 31 December 2019 that they have acted in a way that they consider, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the Company, having regard to those matters set out in section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 (“CA 2006”). As a holding company with no employees, third party suppliers or customers, the directors do not consider the factors listed in sections 172(1)(b), interests of employees, 172(1)(c), relationships with suppliers and customers, or 172(1)(d), impact of operations on the community and environment, as relevant to the proper discharge of their duties pursuant to section 172 of the CA 2006. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Verizon Communications Inc., the directors also do not consider section 172(1)(f), regard to the need to act fairly as between members, as relevant to the proper discharge of their duties.
In their capacity as executives of the Verizon Group, the directors receive a broad range of training, pertaining to their functional roles and more broadly to leadership and other personal skills. To better enable the directors to discharge their duties pursuant to section 172 of the CA 2006, the directors are briefed specifically on their duties as directors of the Company, in particular when reviewing specific transactions that require careful analysis of their duties such as those related to solvency.
The nature of the Company’s activities and its operations during the year were such that the Company’s business strategies, to achieve the Company's long term success, were aligned with the broader Verizon Group which has policies and procedures in place to guide the directors when considering the likely consequences in the long term of their decisions. Meetings of board directors were held on a regular basis to enable the directors to consider a range of topics and receive updates from the business including, but not limited to, financial performance, matters relating to tax, treasury, and updates on Brexit and associated business continuity issues.
During the year, the directors of the Company were supported by a number of corporate functions, including Legal, Accounting, Treasury and Tax.