The Site Solutions Summit™ (SSS) attendees are reminded that certain topics are not proper subjects for discussion and consideration at any SSS meeting, committee, whether formal or informal. While it is entirely appropriate to meet as a group to discuss common problems and areas of interest, it must be kept in mind that there are attendees at meetings that are competitors and any action taken to eliminate, restrict, or govern competition among these groups is a violation of the antitrust laws. If there is any discussion during our meetings relating to significant factors of competition among our attendees, an inference may be raised that such a discussion among competitors is for the purpose of agreeing upon a common course of business conduct.
Rationale
To ensure the SSS complies with federal regulations and guards against liabilities attendees should remember that the SSS’s only proper interests under the antitrust laws are:
- To prevent any situation from which collusion, anti-competitive activity, or concerted action can fairly be inferred.
- To keep attendees fully informed and oriented regarding the SSS’s compliance with the antitrust laws.
- To promote individual determinations regarding company policies. Any policies which the SSS attendees have adopted as their company policies, even if recognized as common practice in the industry, are not considered “SSS” policy and must never be referred to as such.
- To avoid referring to non-attendees of meetings as “the competition”.
- To avoid discussion of attendees’ selling practices which should not be discussed at such a meeting where competitors are in attendance.
- To be of assistance to our attendees and our industry, including providing useful business information, statistics, and opportunities for attendees to network and lawfully exchange information, and to promote their businesses and industry.
General Procedures
All SSS attendees must adhere to the following procedures.
- “Price” is a forbidden subject at any SSS meeting.
- This includes terms and discounts because these are substantial elements of price structure. To avoid any problems, members of our meetings should not participate in any meeting for the purpose of discussing methods of fixing, establishing, maintaining, or discounting prices, or terms or conditions of sale, for services or products. Should such discussions start, attendees should do their best to stop them; if they continue, they should get up and walk out.
- Among the subjects that should never be discussed at SSS meetings are Cost Per Interview (CPI), conditions, terms and prices of service, allocating or sharing of customers, and refusing to deal with a particular provider or customer. Agreements among competitors relating to any of these subjects are per se violations of the antitrust laws, and can lead to severe and civil penalties.
- Territorial limitations are not to be discussed at any SSS meeting. No arrangements where one organization agrees to confine its activity to its own city or county, if a neighboring organization agrees to follow similar limitation, must be discussed or considered.
- No SSS’s rules or regulations should exist which in any way affect the freedom of any attendee to adopt any company policy so desired and to choose those with whom it wants or doesn’t want to deal. Attendees should avoid such “policy” discussions at SSS meetings.
- Attendees must compete in every sense of the word under the American system of competitive enterprise. Members should not wait for a SSS meeting to see what others are going to do. That could involve concerted action which is forbidden by the antitrust laws when such action restrains trade. Attendees should strive to give the best service possible at a price as determined by their own business judgment.
The Site Solutions Summit™ is committed to complying with Federal antitrust regulations.