Antitrust policy

Participant responsibilities

Permitted discussions

Participants may discuss:

• Public policy positions

• Advocacy efforts

• Thinking on research and safety issues

• Other areas not prohibited below

Prohibited discussions and agreements

Do not share competitively sensitive information (or any other information identified below)

Do not discuss or share competitively sensitive information (i.e., information that would generally not be shared among competitors). The exchange of competitively sensitive information among competitors can lead to allegations, investigations, and sometimes prosecutions for price fixing and other antitrust violations. If competitively sensitive information is intentionally exchanged by competitors through a third party, it can also lead to price fixing and other antitrust violations.

Avoid discussing or sharing information regarding any of the following for any product or service that an organization or other entity offers:

• Non-public pricing, licensing terms, terms of sale

• Employee salaries and benefits or contractor compensation

• Confidential research agendas or areas of focus

• The amount of investments or expenditures on research and development, materials, or infrastructure

• Bidding for contracts or RFPs with the U.S. or a foreign government(s), other companies, or other entities

• Product strategies, plans or development roadmaps

• Pricing and marketing strategies

• Market shares

• Hiring talent or recruiting talent from other participants

• Customer lists or advertising strategies

• Whether to do business with any company or any government or other entity

• What business actions to take in response to particular actual or potential regulations, policies, legislation or court decisions

Do not discuss or propose anticompetitive agreements

Avoid discussing or proposing any of the following for any product or service it offers:

• Agreements not to do business with any company or government or other entity

• Agreements to allocate contracts or customers to particular companies

• Agreements not to compete for government contracts or contracts with other companies or the terms of any bids

• Agreements on prices, how to set prices, licensing terms or terms of sale

• Agreements to coordinate product strategies, plans or roadmaps

• Agreements on compensation for employees or contractors

• Agreements not to hire or recruit talent from other participants

• Agreements to reduce, limit or scale back research, product development, innovation or other competitive efforts of any kind

• Agreements on business decisions that would be made in response to particular regulations, policies, legislation or court decisions

Do not agree on prices or output (price or output fixing)

• Agreements among competitors on price or output are always unlawful, meaning that the agreements cannot be defended or justified. The agreement itself is illegal, even if it has no effect on price or output.

• "Price" is interpreted very broadly and includes:

  • • Wholesale, retail and suggested prices for goods and services (including salaries, benefits and wages for employees or independent contractors)

    • Price ranges

    • Pricing formulas

    • Discount, rebate, warranty and credit terms

    • Minimum advertised prices ("MAP")

    • Reference prices (e.g., using one price as a take-off point for other prices)

    • Price increases or decreases

    • Margins

• "Output" includes factors like:

  • • Actual or proposed production or changes in production

    • Downtime in production

• Agreements to limit innovation or set quality also may be illegal.

Do not agree to allocate customers or territories

• Agreements among competitors to allocate, divide or assign customers, territories, products, or services are also per se illegal.

• Agreements between an input supplier and a downstream seller to limit that downstream seller to certain customers or a defined territory are treated differently under the antitrust laws; however, downstream sellers cannot agree on allocations among themselves and have the manufacturer or upstream provider adopt them.

Do not agree to boycotts or refusals to deal

• Agreements among competitors to boycott certain suppliers, customers or competitors are illegal when they are designed to achieve economic advantages for the boycott participants.

• In the trade association context, restrictions on membership and participation in shows or exhibitions, disciplinary proceedings, and standard-setting activities may also create antitrust issues and should be discussed and reviewed with your own legal counsel.