ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to show how both endogenous and exogenous factors pushed the formation of the first international cartel in 1901, the Aluminium-Association. It challenges the current beliefs according to which the first cartel was the mere outcome of the end of patent protections. Its creation was the starting point of a new form of industrial organisation, which aimed to bring back order to the market, hampering the force that trade had gained over it, and to provide order to the future evolution of this industry. The cartel was shaped as a kind of intra-firm corporate structure, whose main goals were to collect information about international markets, to forecast balanced and progressive expansion of the industry through quotas, and to unify sales in key markets. Until its collapse in 1908, the Swiss pioneer of this industry, AIAG, led the Association, being its crafter and administrator.
