ECCO — First Offset Club for Europe

His­to­ry was made in Paris when the first Euro­pean asso­ci­a­tion for coun­ter­trade and Off­set was estab­lished. The Euro­pean Club for Coun­ter­trade and Off­set (ECCO) kicked off its activ­i­ties with 51 com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als already reg­is­tered as mem­bers. The next ordi­nary gen­er­al meet­ing of ECCO is on 14 and 15 June.

ECCO is an Asso­ci­a­tion incor­po­rat­ed under French law and was estab­lished in July 2010 with the aim to bring togeth­er par­ties involved in Off­set, Indus­tri­al Par­tic­i­pa­tion, or coun­ter­trade – includ­ing defence and civ­il con­tracts. Dur­ing the past 18 months var­i­ous play­ers and experts in the Euro­pean defence are­na worked togeth­er to estab­lish the nec­es­sary legal and admin­is­tra­tive struc­ture for the Club to start its operations. 

ECCO has three main activ­i­ties linked to Off­set and asso­ci­at­ed issues:
• estab­lish­ing a com­mon plat­form for par­ties involved in Off­set
• cre­at­ing a forum where rel­e­vant issues can be dis­cussed
• offer­ing rel­e­vant train­ing to its mem­bers to increase the aware­ness of the chal­lenges encoun­tered in the pro­fes­sion
• shar­ing infor­ma­tion on Off­set, coun­ter­trade and inter­na­tion­al trade. 

Chris­t­ian Syl­vain from AREVA was appoint­ed as the chair­man of ECCO. Oth­er Board mem­bers include: Ove Sin­dre Lied, Kongs­berg; Guy Fré­mond, MBDA; Col­in Her­itage, Stem­cor Trade Finance Lim­it­ed; Lee Furter, RUAG; Alain Fer­nan­dez, Thales Inter­na­tion­al Off­set; Jacques Cha­hal-Pure­w­al, Epi­cos; Sonia Méhaig­noul, FN Her­stal; Bertrand Lou­bert and Jean-Marie Aoust. 

ECCO aims to cre­ate a dis­cus­sion forum where the con­di­tions and pre­req­ui­sites of Off­set can be debat­ed, and to stim­u­late rel­e­vant dis­cus­sion through the sched­ul­ing of reg­u­lar meet­ings, dis­trib­ut­ing reli­able infor­ma­tion to its mem­bers. Oth­er aims include:
— to train mem­ber com­pa­nies on Off­set-relat­ed issues, focus­ing on inter­na­tion­al trade
— in gen­er­al, tak­ing all nec­es­sary and appro­pri­ate action to encour­age the devel­op­ment of Off­set skills. 

ECCO will only inter­act with gov­ern­ment author­i­ties and/or enti­ties to the extent nec­es­sary to exchange infor­ma­tion regard­ing cur­rent Off­set poli­cies. It shall not take any action that could direct­ly or indi­rect­ly encour­age Off­set, or coun­ter­trade demands from gov­ern­ment author­i­ties and/or enti­ties, nor will it rep­re­sent any indi­vid­ual, or group of mem­bers with respect to any busi­ness trans­ac­tion, or in negotiations. 

ECCO mem­bers include:
• Off­set Oblig­ors, for exam­ple legal enti­ties whose main activ­i­ties make them direct­ly sub­ject to Off­set oblig­a­tions as required by for­eign gov­ern­ments • Off­set ser­vice providers, for exam­ple nat­ur­al per­sons, or legal enti­ties whose main activ­i­ties con­sist of propos­ing and imple­ment­ing Off­set projects on behalf of its clients and/or deliv­er­ing ser­vices to com­pa­nies, or obligors. 

The cur­rent mem­ber­ship rep­re­sents 15 coun­tries with mem­bers being oper­a­tional in the fol­low­ing indus­tries: defence and secu­ri­ty, trans­port (includ­ing aero­nau­tics) and energy. 

Mem­bers include:
Off­set oblig­ors:
AREVA, Das­sault Avi­a­tion, DCNS, ELTA Sys Ltd, Euro­copter, FN Her­stal, Jeu­mont Elec­tric, Kongs­berg, MBDA France, Nam­mo, Pila­tus Air­craft Ltd, Rhein­metall, RUAG, SAAB, Safran Snec­ma, Safran-SSI, STX Fin­land, Thales Inter­na­tion­al Off­set.
Off­set ser­vice providers:
ACL Wag­n­er Gmbh, Alten SA, Apere, Bak­er & McKen­zie, Blenheim, Citius Inter­na­tion­al, Epi­cos, Essec Busi­ness School, Euro­tra­dia Inter­na­tion­al, Gre­fin­ter, IPA Net­work, Onei­de Asso­cies, PERA, Schoen Aero­space, Stem­cor Trade Finance, Tri­colom, Vit­ruve. ECCO also has a list of indi­vid­ual members. 

ECCO sched­uled infor­ma­tion and dis­cus­sion forums dur­ing the year, focus­ing on Off­set in var­i­ous regions. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, vis­it http://www.ecco-offset.eu.

Press release:
RUAG Defence
RUAG Land Sys­tems AG
Mar­ket­ing & Sales
All­mend­strasse 86
3602 Thun • Switzerland