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Seventh, at recital 317 to the contested decision, the Commission referred to a memorandum dated 16 February 2000 drawn up by an Akcros employee for the attention of one of his superiors (‘the Akcros memorandum’), the terms of which, not disputed by the applicant, must be reproduced in full below: ‘I spoke with Marketing Managers, who have between them substantial history in the EU stabiliser markets … Today we and most of our EU competitors participate in industrial groups (one for ESBO and one for Tins) whose major function it is to consolidate market information in the form of tonnes sales each month … This information is sent in to AC-Treuhand, Switzerland by each member company, the results of which are sent back out to the participants in total … No competitive information is seen. This, to me, seems quite above board and useful. However, two to four times per year the member companies come together in Switzerland to discuss issues of common interest such as market outlooks, trends, activities of non-member companies and the like. While the actual meeting chaired by AC-Treuhand does not seem improper, it was indicated to me that, while together, competitors do have conversations about price levels and customers. It is for this reason, I would recommend that we indicate to AC‑Treuhand that we will no longer participate in the meetings, but will send in our sales information to take advantage of that service. The situation over two years before in these groups was altogether different. Then so-called “red papers” were generated, which contained minutes from the meetings detailing group decisions to raise prices and divide markets. Specific customers were discussed as well. These minutes were not distributed, but were kept in AC-Treuhand’s files which were “safe” as Switzerland was not an EU member. In 1996 or 1997, this type of meeting no longer took place, presumably because of the increased pressures to not do business like this as laws and enforcement became more stringent. More than one member of the Tins group has put pressure upon our representative to go back to this situation where price fixing and market allocation was regularly done at the AC-Treuhand meetings. Baerlocher is applying the greatest amount of such pressure upon us and other members who are not in favour of such an arrangement. They talk specifically about “freezing” market shares, whereas if one member increases his share by taking an account, he would have to give back another account to balance things out again. This would be confirmed via monthly quota checks. We will not agree to participate in such improper activities, and this is one more reason why we should back off from these meetings … In summary, there seemingly were improper meetings/discussions in which Akcros did participate. Although we probably do still have the occasional discussion that might be considered to be wrong, no longer do we participate in the formal meetings that are clearly inappropriate. I would recommend the following: (1) Notify AC-Treuhand that we will no longer attend meetings in Switzerland for the Tin and Epoxy groups, although we will continue to send in our sales data as before. (2) Have … put on awareness training that our Marketing Managers (and others) must attend so that they know clearly what actions they can and cannot take related to contact with competitors. Please let me know if you agree to these suggestions.’