EUROFORGE Guidelines for Association Work compliant with Anti-trust Law

Companies and associations have to assess for themselves whether they behave antitrust compliant. EUROFORGE offers its members a legally secure basis for the exchange of opin-ions and experiences in compliance with the antitrust law. This is an important part of the association's internal communication. Members use this exchange in order to mutually discuss general market issues and challenges of the market. They determine autonomously and inde-pendently their acting in the market. These guidelines shall safeguard that antitrust question-able behavior or even violations of antitrust law is detected and avoided. EUROFORGE, its members and member companies jointly ensure that these guidelines are applied in the asso-ciational practice (Compliance Program):

Exchange of opinions and experiences in meetings, at fairs and other events

Between currently or potentially competing companies no information are exchanged and / or no whatsoever agreements are reached that are capable of restraining competition, particularly with respect to:

• individual pricing, pricing strategy and future market behavior of the parties (including price components);
• individual terms and conditions (such as e.g. individual sales and payment terms, re-bates, credits, incentives, price surcharges etc.);
• individual purchase and production costs (such as e.g. raw material prices, sales costs, energy costs, wage costs etc.);
• handling price increases (such as e.g. raw material, wage costs, other costs)
• division of sales and purchase areas (geographically or per customer);
• allocation of production volumes.

 

Market Information Systems (MIS)
serve the systematic acquisition, analysis and distribution of market-relevant information among competitors. Antitrust law critical are those methods which allow conclusions about individual market-relevant data or about the market behavior of individual companies in the industry. EUROFORGE ensures that its MIS are designed antitrust law compliant.

 

Association Recommendations
are non-binding references to companies which are beneficial for the companies and which, therefore, are proposed. Antitrust critical are those recommendations which intend to circum-vent the cartel ban on collusive behavior. Recommendations relating to the companies pricing are prohibited definitely even if they are referred to as “non-binding”. Unpermitted are also those recommendations that lead to an economic boycott of another company or association.

March 2017