TFL/Commission for Interstellar Commerce

## Overview

Officially, the Commission for Interstellar Commerce (CIC) is a non-profit trade association with corporate offices registered in every member jurisdiction. It seeks to improve the quality of freight shipping and passenger transport by providing quality of service guarantees for customers. It provides an honest brokerage service for individuals and companies looking to have their freight transported, by providing verified, reliable freighters.

Unofficially and tacitly, the CIC is as close to a trade cartel as it gets. Member companies agree not to underbid each other or CIC approved shipping rates, while hiring a CIC recommended company locks the hirer into only working with CIC companies in the future.

## Organization

CIC's distributed nature allows for minor variations in local law to be accommodated while maintaining a consistent overall structure. Local variations generally revolve around things like contraband specific to particular planets or species (e.g. the importation of sodium salts to Slug worlds is more tightly controlled than to other buyers because of the biological hazard implications). CIC formally, officially, and practically disapproves of smuggling and requires member companies to abide by the laws of any Star Nations that they are doing business in.

CIC is led by an Advisory Council composed of thirteen of the richest and most influential shipping lines and bankers in local space. This council of equals sets broad policy, budgets association funds for infrastructure and protection, handles trade negotiations and serves as the court of last appeal to any internal disputes. Membership in the Advisory Council requires a hefty yearly donation; two seats a year are auctioned off on a rotating basis but generally the same shipping lines and banks manage to hold their seats. Much of the cost of maintaining CIC is provided by these donations and auction fees.

### Rules of the Commission and membership requirements

All member shipping lines, guilds, merchant houses and traders must abide by certain basic rules:

1. Members must ship freight at no less than CIC approved rates, and members are not allowed to underbid each other by going under the CIC approved rate.
2. Counterfeit goods are forbidden, as are goods violating patent protection in the local Star Nation
3. Mislabeling goods, failing to keep custody tracking records and forging manifests are excommunicable violations
	1. Salvage can be labeled as such, but these items are subject to right of first refusal by previous owners
	2. Smuggling is forbidden, as it requires forging manifests
4. Contracts are binding, even if carriers take a loss, with the following exceptions
	1. Malfeasance on the part of the shipper or receiver (including material misrepresentation)
	2. Bankruptcy
	3. Mutual dissolution

## Politics

### External Politics

Aside from a heavy rivalry with the Free Traders Association, CIC keeps itself out of the politics of the Star Nations it is involved in. They do make any effort to propagandize and lobby against tariffs and excessive regulation of traded goods, but they do not support particular candidates in democracies or swear allegiance to autocrats or tyrants.

There is no truth to the persistent rumors that CIC hires pirates to attack TFA or other independent shipping, or sends legbreakers after the crew of independent vessels. It is widely believed but not confirmed that CIC has made deals with some pirates, and steers them toward non-CIC vessels and buys any salvage from the pirates.

### Internal Politics

The council members of CIC did not get there by being nice; the heads of mercantile houses who regularly hold board seats are used to getting their way. Council members are reputed to be constantly seeking to weaken one another in an effort to gain more influence on the council. Most alliances are temporary, lasting only as long as convenient. Attempts to consolidate more powerful factional alliances (such as by the marriage of scions of important factions) are viewed with great concern among those not standing to benefit.

The largest issue of contention among the Council is setting the CIC approved shipping rates. The rate is often set below the point of profitability for one or two Council members, and much below the profitability rate for some of the smaller shipping lines. As members are allowed and encouraged to charge more than the approved rates, a low approved rate mostly allows the most efficient companies to corner the most profitable shipping contracts to the limit of their available shipping, and leaves other members to get the rest.