AAQA CODE OF CONDUCT

The Association's Chief Executive Officer and other specifically appointed Management representatives shall continuously seek to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the Association's General Membership Code of Coduct and with this Code and, in particular, shall:

1) base its trading activities on the principles of honesty, integrity and trust and conduct such activities in a manner that is:

1.1 legal and ethical;

1.2 respectful of their public and other general duties of care and of the rights of the Association's customers, employees, partnering organizations and product/service suppliers (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Stakeholders")

1.3 mindful of the protective needs of social, cultural and natural environments;

2) refrain from publishing in any format any illegal, dishonest or misrepresented data and (if called upon in writing so to do by any Stakeholder and/or any other legitimately interested party) the Association shall objectively demonstrate (by means of the cost-free production of supportive data) the validity of all or any indicators contained or referenced in all or any of its marketing or other promotional material (including letterheadings and other general or specialist communication material) which specifically state and/or imply:

2.1 that all or any of its products or services are routinely designed, processed, manufactured, packaged, delivered, installed and/or serviced either in conformity with any type of product and/or service verification or conformity assessment Scheme or Programme and/or;

2.2 that all or any of its products and/or services are routinely supported by any non-optional warranties, indemnities and/or guarantee arrangements and/or;

2.3 that the Association itself (or any of its personnel) possess and/or otherwise maintain any grade, category or level of membership and/or affiliated status with any externally regulated industrial, trade or professional Body and/or with any other regulatory, advisory and/or general or specialist Organization.

3) refrain from publishing and/or using and/or otherwise deploying any unsolicited communicative practices and/or techniques;

4) handle customer complaints and/or general consumer enquiries in an optimally prompt, courteous, fair and equitable manner;

5) offer full cooperation to the providers of any credit card facilities deployed in support of the Association's trading activities in all or any proven circumstances where fraudulent use of any such facility is made by someone other than the card owner (who is not acting as the card owner's Agent) in order to optimally support the rights of any such card owner to cancel any such fraudulently made payment and/or to have the card owner's account re-credited.

6) keep confidential all information relative to all or any Stakeholders and not disclose all or any part of such information to any third party save for such information as may already be in the public domain and/or is required to be disclosed by locally applicable laws;

7) ensure that all employees are familiar with and (where applicable) operate in compliance with this Code and with all other standards to which the Association has voluntarily committed itself and with all locally applicable laws and statutorily imposed and/or other mandatory requirements.

8) provide cost free and PRE-CONTRACTUAL access to the following data to any Stakeholders and/or any other legitimately interested party:

8.1 the Association's full trading name, style or title;

8.2 the full name of the Association's Chief Executive Officer or the full name(s) of its other Senior Executive Manager(s);

8.3 the operational commencement date of the Association's principal trading activities;

8.4 an optimally concise description of the Association's legal trading status (i.e. as a voluntary (not for profit) unincorporated Online Membership Association);

8.5 the full postal address and/or other normative contact data for the Association's registered office or other principal place of business and;

8.6 FULL DETAILS of all Membership Rules, Terms and Conditions and/or Terms of Service that are routinely attached by the Association to the sale and/or hire (or other normative means of customer acquisition) of all or any of its promoted PRODUCTS and/or (as the case may be) to the procurement of all or any of its promoted SERVICES.