Standard Setting Rules

  Standard Setting Rules
  Crude Oil Quality Association

A.   Procedural

  1. Openness in participation with no barriers to participation, i.e. include as many affected parties as possible and do not establish rules that exclude particular groups.
  2. Timely and adequate notice of the initiation of and various steps in the development of the standard with detailed agendas for each meeting.
  3. A balance of interest not dominated by a single category, i.e. give all relevant issues due consideration and do not allow any particular one or subset to dominate the proceedings.
  4. Interest categories should be clearly and fairly defined, i.e. do not exclude any relevant issues from deliberations by framing them too narrowly.
  5. Careful consideration of the views and objections, with all properly addressed or answered.
  6. Unresolved objections should be reported to other members of developing group.
  7. Careful records should be kept, including meeting agendas and minutes which are reviewed by Secretary and attending legal counsel, for clarity, completeness and accuracy.
  8. Meetings should, where appropriate, be attended by legal counsel. They should stick to the agenda and there should be no informal "rump" sessions.

Never discuss the following at meetings:

              a.  Price or any elements relating to price or pricing policy, such as costs or discounts.
              b.  Sales or production quotas, territories, allocations, customers, or market shares.
              c.  Statistics, inventories or marketing methods or strategies of identified individual companies.
              d.  Discussion of particular competitors or customers or which endorse or disparage products   or services or any particular company.
              e.  Topics having particular commercial implications, including specific liabilities, warranties, guarantees or particular terms and conditions of sales, including credit, shipping and transportation arrangements.
               f.  Anything dealing with "arm-twisting" or excluding or controlling competition or competitors.

B. Substantive

                a.  Purpose of standard must be legitimate, reasonable and clearly defined.
                b.  Can reasonably be met by various segments of the industry and should be generally acceptable to users.
                c.  Written, if possible, in the broadest terms to encourage innovation.
                d.  Written so as not to mislead users of the standard. 
                e.  Test measures should be adequate to measure the characteristics required of the standard. 
                f.  Should not require use of a patent unless the patent is available on a nondiscriminatory basis. 
                g.  Should be based on technical and engineering considerations and avoid as much as business relationships between buyers and sellers.