HIMA Benelux code of conduct

HIMA Benelux VZW, Belgian’s DIY suppliers trade association claims to be effective in gathering and disseminating appropriate sector information as well as in representing the industry to the public, government officials and agencies. Furthermore, HIMA Benelux VZW supports its members to produce better and safer products.

However, HIMA Benelux VZW and its Board members and daily management will not use the federation as a forum for illegal collusion between suppliers and or competitors, for example by facilitating price fixing, market, and customer allocation arrangements.

HIMA Benelux VZW has this strict code of conduct for its board members, daily management, and members, stated in the following guidelines:

• Matters which will never be discussed amongst competitors and other suppliers, at any official meeting or social gathering or board meeting:
  • Territorial restrictions, allocation of customers, restrictions on types of products or any other kind of market division.
  • Individual company prices, price changes, conditions of sale (including payment terms and periods of guarantee), price differentials, discounts.
  • General market conditions and general industry problems, including industry pricing policies or patterns, price levels, or industry production; capacity, or inventories (including planned or -anticipated changes regarding those matters), except to the extent necessary to achieve legitimate objectives of the trade association as stated above.
  • Individual production or distribution costs, cost accounting formulas, methods of computing costs.
  • Individual company figures on market shares, sources of supply, production; information as to future plans of individual companies concerning technology, production, marketing and sales; and matters relating to individual suppliers, distributors or customers.
    
    
• Matters which may be discussed:

HIMA Benelux VZW will stimulate and promote the exchange of information of non-confidential technical and promotional issues relevant to the industry, including issues relating to technology in general, health, safety and environmental matters, technical standards, transportation hazards and regulations, quality control issues and new and proposed legislation.

Concerning trade industry statistics and market data:

HIMA Benelux VZW as a federation will do all its possible, to ensure that an independent company, or at the very least a team of trade association staff unconnected with any of its members, collects an disseminates the information without identification of the company who submitted it; the participants submitting their data do not disclose that information to other participants, in order to maintain complete confidentiality of the individual data submitted; the data collated and disseminated is aggregated data which does not allow the identification of an individual participant; and the information relates to historic data only and does not include future data.

Code of conduct in HIMA Benelux VZW as a trade association.

The following rules apply in connection with trade association meetings:

• HIMA Benelux VZW makes sure that an agenda will be circulated for review in advance of the meeting. Every participant is free to comment on that agenda and make objections on whatever agenda item.
• HIMA Benelux VZW will not instigate to informal commercial discussions of any kind before or after meetings.
• HIMA Benelux VZW organizes that detailed notes of the meeting will be taken and every member of the meeting has the right to make objections made in writing in the minutes against any deviation from the agenda which would go into prohibited legal discussions of its member areas.
• Members have at all moments the right to withdraw from the meetings if they want. If they would do so they have the right to have the reason for leaving well recorded in writing in the minutes.