New cotton association president takes hard line on defaulters
13/11/2015
He will be supported by Jürg Reinhart (chairman of Paul Reinhart, Switzerland) as first vice-president and Salman Ispahani (managing director, Pahartali Textiles) as second vice-president.
New to the board are Bill Ballenden (general manager, Louis Dreyfus Commodities Suisse), Carl Peltzer (a trader at Cargill Cotton UK), Raymond Faus (CEO of Omnicotton, US), Alex Hsu (managing director, Formosa Trading, Taiwan), Alexandre Lins (managing director, Laferlins, Brazil) and Dr Joon Kim (chairman of the Spinners & Weavers Association of Korea, South Korea).
Mr Derossis thanked his co-colleagues at the ICA, especially his predecessor, Jordan Lea, who he said was one of the finest gentlemen he had ever met.
He said: “The association has been taking a very benign and patient approach to those members that were found out to have traded with defaulters. But regretfully, it seems that the benign approach isn’t working. On the contrary, the problem is getting worse for a simple reason: the cotton market has been very un-volatile in the past couple of years, which means that defaults are few and far between. Arbitrations inherited from the 2010/11 season are drawing to a close. Merchants find it more difficult to generate margins. So the temptation is great to cut corners.
“The ICA principles are not optional - they are permanent. Either one is prepared to abide by them at all times, or one shouldn’t be a member of the ICA at all.
“We cannot stop people buying from or selling to defaulters. But we can and we will stop members from doing so. Keeping up appearances in front of the cotton world whilst making a living out of dealing with defaulters behind the scenes is over. We just cannot afford to tolerate this sort of behaviour anymore because it ruins the credibility of the association. Our association still needs to make major progress in enforcing awards and ensuring that defaulting comes at a price that is too high to bear. I will spend the next year putting all my energy to bring us closer to these goals.”
Image: The ICA’s new leaders l-r: Jürg Reinhart, Jean-Marc Derossis, Salman Ispahani
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