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Frossard, authorized to act in this matter by decision of the board
of management, dated 9 July, 1941.
designated “Le Groupe Francais”
[The French Group], on the one side,
and
I. G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft, situated at Frankfurt on Main,
hereinafter called IG, on the other side.
The following has been laid down and agreed upon: |
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| Preamble |
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The negotiations between the contracting parties entered upon with a
view to concluding the present agreement were commenced at Wiesbaden on 21
November 1940 between the representatives of the undersigned parties in the
presence of the representatives of the French and German Governments.
The German representatives indicated from the outset that the cartel
agreements previously in existence between the undersigned parties were to be
considered invalid in view of events which had occurred during the war. The
French representatives then observed that, in accordance with the terms of
French legislation then in force, agreements previously concluded between the
French and the Germans were simply suspended for the duration of hostilities,
but not abrogated, and that an express abrogation appeared necessary in order
that the old agreements might be replaced by new ones. The German
representatives, maintaining their point of view, considered that there was no
necessity to have recourse to arbitration as provided for by the aforementioned
agreements concluded previously, designed to resolve the problem of whether the
agreements were still valid. They requested the French representatives to
acknowledge their control of a 51 percent interest in the capital of a French
Société Anonyme comprising all the French dyestuffs factories and
enjoying a monopoly of the production rights for these products in France. They
submitted a memorandum indicating their reasons for claiming majority rights
(Fuehrungsansprueche) in the French dyestuffs industry.
The French
representatives replied that, despite their desire to reach a friendly
agreement, they could not subscribe to the German views on this subject and
that they would refer the matter to the French Government.
The
discussions were resumed in Paris on 20 January 1941. The IG representatives
then stated that they had modified their original proposals, and offered to pay
the German investments in the new company not in kind but in IG shares.
On the occasion of a third interview in Paris on 12 March 1941, IG
stated that it renounced the right to a monopoly in France of production rights
for dyestuffs in the future Company.
During a meeting held on 12 March
1941, convened and presided |
140 |
. 
