ABSTRACT
The crisis of the first cartel coincided with the lost of credibility of AIAG as an international leader able to forecast trends and to keep the unity of the group. The revitalisation of the Association, on the contrary, was possible by the emergence of a new international leader (Aluminium Français – AF, the national cartel). The clear supremacy of a firm was an important factor for finding again the necessary trust for settling a cartel and to impose its vision about the new shape of the Association. A key instrument of cohesion was the sharing of promising technology. Links between cartels and technology transfer are central to this chapter: the possibility of disposing of technological innovations makes firms more inclined to enter in cartel agreements and to respect them. Yet as soon as this technological innovation turned out to be a fiasco, cohesion collapsed. The war stopped cartelisation, anticipating the formal demand of liquidation advanced by some members
