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Antitrust & Harassment Compliance Guidelines

The Erosion Control and Technology Council (ECTC) and our member companies are committed to full compliance with all laws and regulations, and to maintaining the highest ethical standards in the way we conduct our operations and activities. Our commitment includes strict compliance with both federal and state antitrust and harassment laws, which are designed to protect this country’s competitive economy and provide a safe and respectful work environment. Please be reminded you must comply with the Anti-trust and Harassment guidelines even if you are not a paid ECTC Member.

Responsibility for Compliance

Compliance with the antitrust and harassment laws is a serious business. Violations may result in heavy fines for corporations and in fines and even criminal sanction for individuals. Each member and staff employee bears the ultimate responsibility for assuring that their actions and the actions of any of those under their direction comply with these laws.

It is the policy of the Erosion Control Technology Council (ECTC) to comply fully with the antitrust laws applicable to trade association activities. The Sherman Act and other applicable antitrust laws are intended to promote vigorous and fair competition and to combat various restraints of trade.

A. In furtherance of this policy, all ECTC meetings are attended by the Recording Secretary and he/she periodically consults with ECTC legal counsel.

B. Each person who is employed by a corporate member of ECTC and who participates in ECTC activities has a responsibility to his employer, to himself and his family, and to ECTC to avoid any improper conduct from an antitrust standpoint. The following guidelines will assist in meeting this responsibility:

1. ECTC meetings and discussions are, in general, to be industry-promotion, industry-issue, industry-development or technically oriented. Subject to the above and the advice of ECTC legal counsel in attendance at the ECTC meetings, discussions may generally cover industry product developments on a generic basis, advancing “technical know-how,” improving productivity and efficiency, historical market data on a general (i.e. non-specific company) basis, and regulatory or legal industry-wide issues such as product liability or patent and trademark protection legal standards, policies of federal and state law enforcement bodies, and federal or state laws or pending legislation important to the industry.

2. In view of antitrust considerations (both civil and criminal) and to avoid any possible restraints on competition, the following legally-sensitive subjects as to a given company or its competitors must be avoided during any discussion between competitors:

a. Future marketing plans of specific competitors should not be discussed between competitors;
b. Any complaints or business plans relating to specific customers, specific suppliers, specific geographic markets or specific products, should not be discussed between competitors; agreements between competitors to allocate markets (customers or products) are illegal under the antitrust laws; agreements between competitors to refuse to deal with a supplier or a customer are illegal under the antitrust laws;
c. Purchasing plans or bidding plans should not be discussed (except privately between two parties with a vertical commercial relationship such as supplier and customer);
d. Current and future price information and pricing plans, bidding plans, refund or rebate plans, discount plans, credit plans, specific product costs, profit margin information and terms of sale should not be discussed between competitors. All of the above are elements of competition;
e. Any question regarding the legality of a discussion topic or business practice should be brought to the attention of ECTC legal counsel or a company’s individual legal counsel for legal advice.

Harassment

It is our policy to provide an environment free from sexual harassment. No member or staff employee should be subjected to unsolicited or unwelcome sexual overtures or conduct, either written, physical, or verbal. This also means not engaging in conduct of a sexual nature—either physical or verbal—which is unwelcome, intimidating, or hostile.

ECTC Forum Rules & Guidelines

This is a User to User, English language only Support Forum. Information or opinions contained in any posts are those solely of the user making the post and in no way is validated by or the opinions of ECTC, this includes those of our moderators. Use of any information on this board is done so AT YOUR OWN RISK. While we may at time respond to posts, ECTC makes no warrants or claims regarding the validity of any information posted by users on this board nor do we review posts for accuracy of information.

This board is moderated by both ECTC staff as well as 3rd party member moderators and we request that you please be respectful when interacting with our moderating team. Please follow these guidelines carefully.

1. NO OBSCENE LANGUAGE
This board is intended for professional use. Please refrain from using any vulgar language that would offend someone else. Inappropriate words will be edited. This also applies to Signatures.

2. NO OBSCENE MATERIAL
Please, no pornographic material or links to it. If it is not fit for a professional setting, it is not fit for here. DON'T DO IT! We have a 0 tolerance policy on this one.

3. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
Always give appropriate credit and link back to web sources when referring to protected material. Do not post questionable material - see our Antitrust and Harassment Policy.

4. NO PERSONAL INSULTS or ATTACKS
ECTC provides this site for our members and friends to gather and discuss industry products and technology in general. You are free to disagree with others, but if you stoop to personal abuse or attacks, your post(s) will be deleted. If you ARE insulted please report the post, but DO NOT retaliate.

5. NO TROLLING OR FLAME WARS
Trolling and/or attempting to bait others into a flame war will not be tolerated. This includes political commentary. Any posts we deem to fall in this category will be deleted.

6. POST IN THE APPROPRIATE FORUM
Please read each forum description before posting to ensure you are posting in the correct forum. Off topic posts will be moved to the correct forum.

7. NO DUPLICATE OR REPEAT POSTS
If no-one answers your question or responds to your post, please "bump" it rather than posting it again. Posting the same question over and over or in every forum will just annoy people and will not get answers.

8. USE APPROPRIATE TITLES
Titles like Help Me, or I'm Stuck serve little value in a forum. Try to be short but descriptive when submitting your post. Likewise, try to be clear and articulate when posting your questions, answers, or comments. Unclear messages/posts only add confusion and may delay responses to your post.

9. NO ILLEGAL SUGGESTIONS
Respect the copyrights of other people, websites, software and printed media. Please no pointers, how-to’s, advocating any illegal activity.

10. NO ADVERTISING/SPAM or SOLICITATION
Do not use this site as a redirector or gateway to another site for the purpose of collecting click income or advertising. Although there are times when a link to another site is necessary for helping or answering a question, this site reserves the right to determine what is and is not SPAM. Any SPAM will be immediately deleted and the user warned. Likewise, this is not your personal "for sale" board to advertise items. There are other sites out there that will allow you to sell your items.

11. REGARDING IMAGES
ECTC does not have the ability to allow the uploading of any images too our servers. However, you are free to post links to hosted images on your own servers. Please remember, no pornographic or obscene material of any kind.

12. SIGNATURES and USER NAMES
While we have allowed the use of signatures as a form of expression, they still must pass the "no obscenities" test.
Any post/thread that ECTC Moderators deem inappropriate for our boards will be dealt with accordingly. If you have any questions about actions taken against a post/thread please e-mail the appropriate forum's Moderator(s). Please remember that this is a professional message board. We reserve the right to edit/delete posts/threads at our discretion.

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