April 2021
The following policy is applicable to all AFS activities and must be observed in all situations and under all circumstances, without exception or qualification other than as noted below.
- Neither AFS nor any committee, conference or activity of AFS shall be used for the purpose of bringing about, or attempting to bring about, any understanding or agreement, whether written or oral, formal or informal, expressed or implied, among competitors with regard to prices, terms or conditions of sale, discounts, distribution, volume of production, territories or customers.
- No AFS activity or communication shall include discussion or action, for any purpose or in any fashion, of prices or pricing methods, production quotas or other limitations on either the timing or volume of production or of sales or involve allocation of territories or markets or customers in any way.
- No AFS committee shall undertake any activity, which involves exchange or collection and dissemination among competitors, of any information regarding prices, pricing methods, costs of production, or of sales or distribution or individual company statistics of any kind, without first obtaining the advice of legal counsel, provided by the Society, as to those proper and lawful methods by which these activities may be pursued.
- No AFS activity or communication shall include any discussion or action which might be construed as an attempt to prevent any person or business entity from gaining access to any market or to any customer for goods or services, or to prevent or boycott any business entity from obtaining a supply of goods or otherwise purchasing goods or services freely in the market.
- No AFS activity or communication shall include any discussion or action which might be construed as an agreement or understanding to refrain from purchasing any raw materials, equipment, services or other supplies from any supplier.
- Neither AFS nor any committee thereof, shall make any effort to bring about the standardization of any product or method of manufacture or certification of any product or program for the purpose of preventing the manufacture or sale of any product not conforming to a specified standard or which would tend to have the overall effect of either lessening competition or resulting in a degree of price stabilization.
- In conducting AFS committee meetings, the chairman thereof shall prepare and follow a formal agenda. Minutes of each meeting shall be distributed to all persons who attended such meetings. Approval of the minutes shall be obtained from the membership of the committee at its next meeting. Copies of the minutes shall be transmitted to the headquarters staff for retention.
- Society speakers and authors of conference papers shall be informed of the need to comply with the Society’s antitrust policy in the preparation and presentation of their papers.
- In informal or social discussions at the site of an AFS meeting, which are beyond the control of its officers and committee leaders, all representatives are expected to observe the same standards of personal conduct required of the Society in its compliance with these antitrust guidelines. In addition, copies of the foregoing Antitrust Policy Statement and General Rules of Antitrust Compliance will be included in registration packets and will also be printed in the AFS Committee Handbook.