All,
This is an exciting time to work at Diebold. Diebold recently entered into an agreement to acquire Wincor. However, we will not close the transaction with Wincor for several months. Until the transaction closes, antitrust rules restrict our interactions with Wincor. Failure to abide by those rules threatens to delay closing and can lead to substantial fines, penalties or review by antitrust authorities of your individual conduct.
The most important thing to remember is: Diebold and Wincor are still competitors. Diebold cannot take control of or influence Wincor’s business decisions, and Wincor cannot take control of or influence Diebold’s business decisions.
Do’s:
• Continue to compete against Wincor.
• Market, negotiate, and bid for business independently without exchanging any information with Wincor.
• You may continue to interact with Wincor as you have always done in the ordinary course of business before the transaction was accounted. For example, Diebold may continue interacting with Wincor in connection with Diebold’s service of Wincor hardware.
• You may continue to talk with Wincor employees about business generally and you may express friendly enthusiasm about working with them in the future.
Don’ts:
• Do not coordinate for customer bids or negotiations.
• Do not make joint customer calls with Wincor.
• Do not coordinate with Wincor about marketing or new product plans.
• Do not coordinate on costs or acceptable margins.
• Do not influence Wincor’s business.
• Do not share competitively sensitive information with Wincor.
• Do not receive competitively sensitive information from Wincor.
What is competitively sensitive information?
Competitively sensitive information is non-public information that one competitor would not share with another in the ordinary course of business and that could aid one company in competing with the other.
Subjects that are likely to contain completely sensitive information include:
• Non-public prices, margins, customer identities, plans for future price increases or decreases, and pricing formulas or methods.
• Most customer-specific information, including prices, discounts or other terms, quantities, and product mix.
• Future non-public marketing plans or strategies, including whether or not to bid for a specific customer’s or potential customer’s business.
• Precise costs of products or costs by product line.
• New product development, particularly products that are close to launching and the timing of the launch.
• R&D projects, proprietary models, or trade secrets.
Please follow the above guidelines in all of your communications. Regulatory agencies that review the merger might ask to see Diebold documents and communications, and this could include emails.
If you have any questions, ask the AP Legal and Compliance Team for guidance. If you receive any information from Wincor that you do not think should have been shared, please reach out to the AP Legal and Compliance Team.
Chris Monsour, AP General Counsel
Margaux Day, AP Compliance Director