ABSTRACT
The dissolution of the Association in 1908 opened a brand new phase from two points of view. First, the aluminium industry had never been so ‘disorganised’. The sharing of the same technological system, electrolysis, had linked the aluminium producers since the end of the nineteenth century, facilitating the creation of the first cartel. In fact, ever since the companies had chosen scales and scopes strategies during the 1890s, the agreements had always functioned as a scaffold for this industry during its early development. In the situation opened by the crisis of the cartel, firms appeared for the first time as completely disconnected. Moreover, as a consequence of the creation of newcomers, such as the outsiders that came to the fore between 1906 and 1909, the group of producers was much less homogeneous than in the past. As a consequence, they both shared a less common basis on which to build a new agreement and were less dependent on the former leader of the Association, AIAG, to which they did not recognise any authority in the organisation of the international markets.1
