Stop seemingly default action of copied activex component

I have been scratching my head over this for quite sometime, however I think I have discovered the root cause if not a solution.

using an activex button on sheet1 to create a copy of sheet template which has an activex combobox on it creates the copy just fine.
The combobox which was renamed in the copy process, has code that searches the current sheet before allowing the addition of the selected item to the list on the sheet. this code works as well in fact it works twice as well. What I mean by that is that it appears that the combobox code is running first from the template then again from the new copy.

If you select a new item, the list will be updated, then you will get an immediate "duplicate found" warning.
If you select an existing item, you will get back to back "duplicate found" warnings.

Does anyone know of a way to stop this behavior.

The attached xslm file give a stripped down version to allow you to see what is happening.

TIA