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RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2016
Related Party Transactions [Abstract]  
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS DISCLOSURE
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS
The Corporation sells its products to Dow to simplify the customer interface process. Products are sold to and purchased from Dow at market-based prices in accordance with the terms of Dow’s intercompany pricing policies. After each quarter, the Corporation and Dow analyze the pricing used for the sales in that quarter and reach agreement on any necessary adjustments, at which point the prices are final. The Corporation also procures certain commodities and raw materials through a Dow subsidiary and pays a commission to that Dow subsidiary based on the volume and type of commodities and raw materials purchased. The commission expense is included in “Sundry income (expense) - net” in the consolidated statements of income. Purchases from that Dow subsidiary were $379 million in the third quarter of 2016 ($399 million in the third quarter of 2015) and $1,011 million during the first nine months of 2016 ($1,392 million during the first nine months of 2015). The decrease in purchase costs in the first nine months of 2016 when compared with the same period last year is due to lower feedstock and energy costs.

The Corporation has a master services agreement with Dow whereby Dow provides services including, but not limited to, accounting, legal, treasury (investments, cash management, risk management, insurance), procurement, human resources, environmental, health and safety and business management for UCC. Under the master services agreement with Dow, general administrative and overhead type services that Dow routinely allocates to various businesses are charged to UCC. The master services agreement cost allocation basis is headcount and includes a 10 percent service fee. This agreement resulted in expense of $7 million in the third quarter of 2016 ($7 million in the third quarter of 2015) and $21 million for the first nine months of 2016 ($22 million for the first nine months of 2015) for general administrative and overhead type services and the 10 percent service fee, included in “Sundry income (expense) - net” in the consolidated statements of income. The remaining activity-based costs were $19 million in the third quarter of 2016 ($18 million in the third quarter of 2015) and $53 million in the first nine months of 2016 ($51 million in the first nine months of 2015), and were included in “Cost of sales” in the consolidated statements of income.

Management believes the method used for determining expenses charged by Dow is reasonable. Dow provides these services by leveraging its centralized functional service centers to provide services at a cost that management believes provides an advantage to the Corporation.

The monitoring and execution of risk management policies related to interest rate and foreign currency risks, which are based on Dow’s risk management philosophy, are provided as a service to UCC.

As part of Dow’s cash management process, UCC is a party to revolving loans with Dow that have interest rates based on LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) with varying maturities. At September 30, 2016, the Corporation had a note receivable of $1.5 billion ($1.3 billion at December 31, 2015) from Dow under a revolving loan agreement. The Corporation may draw from this note receivable in support of its daily working capital requirements and, as such, the net effect of cash inflows and outflows under this revolving loan agreement is presented in the consolidated statements of cash flows as an operating activity.

The Corporation also has a separate revolving credit agreement with Dow that allows the Corporation to borrow or obtain credit enhancements up to an aggregate of $1 billion that matures December 30, 2016. Dow may demand repayment with a 30-day written notice to the Corporation, subject to certain restrictions. A related collateral agreement provides for the replacement of certain existing pledged assets, primarily equity interests in various subsidiaries and joint ventures, with cash collateral. At September 30, 2016, $948 million ($940 million at December 31, 2015) was available under the revolving credit agreement. The cash collateral is reported as “Noncurrent receivables from related companies” in the consolidated balance sheets.

On a quarterly basis, the Corporation's Board of Directors reviews and approves a dividend distribution to its parent company and sole shareholder, Dow. The Board takes into consideration the level of earnings and cash flows, among other factors, in determining the amount of the dividend distribution. In the third quarter of 2016, the Corporation declared and paid a cash dividend of $55 million to Dow; dividends to Dow totaled $455 million in the first nine months of 2016. In the third quarter of 2015, the Corporation did not pay a cash dividend to Dow; dividends to Dow totaled $220 million for the first nine months of 2015.

On October 5, 2015, (i) Dow completed the transfer of its U.S. Gulf Coast Chlor-Alkali and Vinyl, Global Chlorinated Organics and Global Epoxy businesses into a new company ("Splitco"), (ii) participating Dow shareholders tendered, and Dow accepted, Dow shares for Splitco shares in a public exchange offer, and (iii) Splitco merged with a wholly owned subsidiary of Olin Corporation in a tax efficient Reverse Morris Trust transaction (collectively, the “Transaction”). As part of the Transaction, Dow established a separate legal entity structure to hold the relevant assets to be carved out from the existing Dow structure. To facilitate the Transaction, all entities in Europe and Asia Pacific were aligned under one single entity, with shares owned entirely by Dow. In order to align entity ownership under Dow, entities distributed their shares to Dow through either a series of dividends or share redemptions. As a result, in September 2015, UCC redeemed 462.7096 shares of common stock of Dow International Holdings Company (“DIHC”), a cost method investment, in exchange for stock in Blue Cube International Holdings, LLC (“BCIH”). Prior to the distribution, UCC had a 19.1 percent ownership interest in DIHC with the other 80.9 percent owned by Dow and its other wholly-owned subsidiaries. After the distribution, UCC’s investment in DIHC was reduced to 15 percent and resulted in a reduction in investments in related companies of $174 million. UCC then transferred and distributed to Dow all of its membership interest in BCIH in exchange for 64.58 shares of its common stock held by Dow. Dow will continue to own 100 percent of UCC. As part of the final settlement, an adjustment was made to the shares of UCC common stock that were exchanged by Dow, bringing the final number of UCC common stock exchanged with Dow to 64.49 shares. The impact of these transactions is reflected in “Investments in related companies” and “Additional paid-in capital” in the consolidated balance sheets.