Our annual conference, this year in Zurich, was a great success. 

We welcome Tony Petersen as our new President who will soon begin a schedule visiting all member countries and their consituent members, and we warmly thank Francois Chilot for 20 years unwavering dedication in his Presidency. Francois will remain connected with the CFP-E as Honorary Chairman. 

One of our key decisions is the unanimous recommendation to all our respective membership that all future bid letters submitted by production companies include the following wording:

“We are submitting this bid on the basis that the Agency is soliciting bona fide competitive bids and on the understanding that to ensure a fair, legal and non-conflicted bidding process, no entity in the bidding pool, directly or indirectly, is a parent or subsidiary of the Agency nor connected to the Agency or any holding company the Agency are connected to.”

The purpose of this is to put the agency on notice that our production companies are happy to take part in a fair competition but not to have their bid used to enhance an agency in-house bid by providing creative and methodology that they can employ or to lend credibility to the agency bid. This wording is based upon wording that the AICP introduced last week for US production companies to use in their bidding letters.

The minutes will be distributed to all member associations.