§ 535.706 - Filing of minutes—including shippers' requests and complaints, and consultations.

(a) Meetings. For purposes of this subpart, the term meeting shall include any meeting of the parties to the agreement, including meetings of their agents, principals, owners, committees, or subcommittees of the parties authorized to take final action on behalf of the parties. Where the agreement so authorizes, this includes final action by telephonic or personal polls of the membership.

(b) Content of minutes. Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, conferences, interconference agreements, agreements between a conference and one or more ocean common carriers, pooling agreements, equal access agreements, discussion agreements, maritime terminal conferences, and marine terminal rate fixing agreements shall, through a designated official, file ith the Commission a report of each meeting defined in paragraph (a) of this section describing all matters within the scope of the agreement which are discussed or considered at any such meeting, including shippers’ requests and complaints, as well as consultations with shippers and shippers’ associations, and shall indicate the action taken. These reports need not disclose the identity of parties that participated in discussions or the votes taken.

(c) Exemption. No minutes need be filed under paragraph (b) of this section with respect to any discussion of or action taken with regard to:

(1) Rates that, if adopted, would be required to be published in the pertinent tariff except that this exemption does not apply to discussions limited to general rate policy, general rate changes, the opening or closing of rates, or service or time/volume contracts; or

(2) Purely administrative matters.

(d) Serial numbers. (1) Each set of minutes filed with the Commission should be assigned a number. For example, a conference filing minutes of its first meeting upon the effective date of this rule should assign Meeting No. 1 to its minutes, the next meeting will be assigned Meeting No. 2, and so on.

(2) Any conference or rate agreement which, for its own internal purposes, has a system for assigning sequential numbers to its minutes in a manner which differs from that set forth in paragraph (d)(1) of this section may continue to utilize its own system thereof.