Our purchasing policy for diamonds

As a member of the BJA ( British Jewellers Association), Sherry Jewellery supports the initiative of the United Nations and the World Diamond Council (The Kimberley Process) to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the legitimate supply chains of the jewellery industry.  The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme ensures that mining of diamonds is strictly supervised at government level and that legitimately mined diamonds, in their “rough” state (before cutting and polishing) are only transferred between participating countries under strictly monitored conditions, in tamper proof containers, and accompanied by the appropriate documentation. 

To ensure that only these legitimate diamonds, when cut and polished, pass into the jewellery manufacturing process, and therefore into the jewellery which we sell to our customers, we participate in the system of warranties and code of conduct issued by the World Diamond Council on 29 October 2002 and endorsed by the British Jewellers’ Association.

Under the WDC Code of Conduct we will:

• not buy diamonds from firms who will not put a conflict diamonds warranty on their invoices.
• not buy diamonds from suspect or unknown sources or from countries not participating in the   Kimberley Process.
   
• not buy diamonds from a source found to have violated government regulations on conflict diamonds.
   
•  not buy diamonds from regions where government advice indicates that conflict diamonds are emanating or on sale unless they have been exported under the Kimberley Process.
   
• not knowingly buy or sell or assist others to buy or sell conflict diamonds.
   
•  ensure that all company employees who buy and sell diamonds are well informed about the Kimberley process and industry self regulation.

All of our suppliers have been advised that each invoice they send us covering diamonds (or jewellery which contains diamonds), must carry the following warranty and that if they fail to supply this warranty, we will not place further orders with them. 

“The diamonds herein invoiced have been purchased from legitimate sources not involved in funding conflict and in compliance with United Nations resolutions. The seller hereby guarantees that these diamonds are conflict free, based on personal knowledge and/or written guarantees provided by the supplier of these diamonds.”

In certain cases where diamonds may have been mined before the introduction of the Kimberley Process in January 2003, we will accept the following alternative warranty.

“The Seller will not knowingly sell conflict diamonds and to the best of our ability we will undertake reasonable measures to help prevent the sale of conflict diamonds in this country”

In turn we will pass on these warranties to our trade and retail customers to enable them to be confident in the integrity of our supply chain.