Companies that want to foster responsible business practices might be surprised to learn that they must also be careful not to breach the law. Joint initiatives to tackle environmental and social risks are emerging in a widening range of industries, from tea and coffee to jewellery and clothing. In the electronics sector, for example, leading companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell and IBM are together launching an industry code of conduct for suppliers. Big brands such as Mattel and Hasbro have also said their suppliers must now meet jointly agreed standards set out by the International Council of Toy Industries. The idea is to pool valuable experience and to reduce the inefficiencies created when swarms of auditors are sent out by different companies to monitor conditions in the same factories. Many companies have also recognised that their ability to change suppliers' practices is limited when acting alone. However, while the ultimate objective of industry-wide programmes is to improve conditions in the places from which companies source their goods, their collaborative nature means they and their advisers must pay attention to competition legislation. Certainly, when it comes to one recent trend - for companies in an industry to group together to address labour and environmental conditions - they must pay attention to how such collaborations might be viewed by antitrust regulators...Although the motivation behind these new industry collaborations has nothing to do with price fixing or market manipulation, technically there is the potential for the law to interpret otherwise, particularly as some of the sustainability programmes encourage the purchase of sustainably produced commodities...If competition issues have been addressed early on, however, antitrust legislation should not provide barriers to collaborative ventures in corporate responsibility, says Mr Rudolph. "These initiatives are all extremely pro-consumer and pro-efficiency," he says. "They just need to be thorough in their approach to demonstrating that they are not creating competitive concerns and be aware of the traditional risks that are associated with competitors getting together." [also refers to Kraft Foods (part of Altria)]