66th IUCAB Delegates Meeting in Valencia
This year, the Annual Meeting of IUCAB was held in Valencia between 30th – 1st June 2019. Presidents, secretaries and lawyers of almost all member associations came together. The meeting was hosted by the Spanish member association CGAC and perfectly organised by COAC Valencia.
On the first day of the meeting, the Secretarial Working Group (SWG) members met to discuss the latest developments in the national associations. At the same time, the Legal Working Group (LWG) met in which the lawyers and legal advisers exchanged information on the most recent case law according the commercial agent law in the Member States.
During the Delegates’ Meeting the ongoing evaluation of the VBER (Vertical Block Exemption Regulation) and the Guidelines on Vertical Restraints was discussed as well as the lobbying actions done by IUCAB. The current exemption will expire on 31st May 2022 and is one of the most important regulations to guarantee the legal certainty for commercial agents and their principals. Therefore all efforts must be made in order to maintain the exemption.
CAMEX from Peru was officially approved as IUCAB full member. It is the first step for IUCAB into South America.
Furthermore, eight member associations received the IUCAB Training Label, which confirms that their national training program fulfils the IUCAB training requirements: APAC (France), APARC USARCI (Piedmont, Italy), Bundesgremium der Handelsagenten (Austria), CAMEX (Peru), COACB (Barcelona, Spain), FNAC (France), PTZ (Slovenia), VNHI (Netherlands).
In addition, the Secretary General presented the latest IUCAB developments and actions from the last 12 months. He introduced the annual report and the action plan of IUCAB for 2019/2020. The delegates agreed to strengthen the cooperation with the manufacturer associations and international organisations as well as to improve the communication tools.
Therefore, the new IUCAB flyer was presented and social media actions will follow.
During the Delegates Meeting a workshop was organised in order to collect ideas and suggestions for IUCAB´s social media strategy.
Mr. Eckhard Doepfer gave a presentation about the development of the commercial agency profession. As a result the commercial agents must be visible much earlier in the process of purchase. Therefore, the IUCAB B2B platform will be relaunched by the end of the year.
Mr. David Johnson was re-elected as Vice-President.
The next Annual meeting will take place in Stockholm from 14th to 16th May 2020.
For national reports of IUCAB Member associations, read more HERE.
