core sector communique

WFDB cancels membership of Diamond Bourse of South Korea

Antwerp, Belgium, November 22, 2011 - The Executive Committee of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) determined that the request of the Diamond Bourse of South Korea (DBK) to become a member of the WFDB did not come into effect due to lack of payment of the entrance fee.

The request of the DBK to become the WFDB's 29th member was discussed and approved in principle at the 33rd World Diamond Congress that was held in Shanghai, China, in 2008, under the precondition of fulfillment of the Articles of Association of the WFDB, in particular, full payment of the entrance fee. As the DBK has not paid this fee, its WFDB membership did not come into effect and its request has been therefore cancelled.

WFDB President Avi Paz said the above decision was taken during a recent meeting of the WFDB's governing body that took place in November 2011 in Antwerp. "We have time and again asked the DBK to make payment, but our calls went unanswered," Paz recalled. "Full payment of the entrance fee to the WFDB is a pre-condition for membership of a candidate bourse to take effect," Paz noted. "The DBK never took that last step, and therefore, the request for membership has been denied."

In a letter to the Korean bourse, Paz said that the failure of the Korean bourse to pay the entrance fee constituted a "fundamental violation of the WFDB's undertakings" and that the WFDB therefore had no choice but "to cancel the request of the Diamond Bourse of South Korea for membership and to put the issue on the agenda of the next Congress."

About the WFDB:

The object of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses is to protect the interests of affiliated bourses and their individual members, and to further the amicable settlement or arbitration of differences and disputes between the individual members of the affiliated bourses and between the affiliated bourses. In furtherance of this object, it is the aim of the world federation to participate in the promotion of world trade and to encourage the establishment of bourses, with the view of eventual affiliation of all centres where diamonds are actively traded.

Members of the bourses affiliated to the World Federation of Diamond Bourses pledge themselves to uphold the traditions, principles of mutual trust, consideration and friendship which prevail among the members of the bourses world-wide. They pledge themselves to abide by and hand down these principles and to ensure that they will forever serve as a basis in business relations between members of the affiliated bourses world-wide.