We studied in detail the binary cluster candidates SL 538 and NGC 2006 in the Large Magellanic Cloud ( LMC ) .
This cluster pair is located in the northwestern part of the large OB association LH 77 in supergiant shell LMC 4 .
A third star cluster , KMHK 1019 , is located within 5 \arcmin from the cluster pair .
Our study is the first age determination of SL 538 and NGC 2006 that is based on CMDs .
We derived an age of 18 \pm 2 Myr for SL 538 , 22.5 \pm 2.5 Myr for NGC 2006 , and 16 Myr for KMHK 1019 .
Thus the three clusters are ( nearly ) coeval .
We identified Be star candidates and find the same ratio N ( Be ) /N ( B ) for the components of the binary cluster ( 12 % ) while the amount of Be stars detected in KMHK 1019 ( 5 % ) and in the surrounding field ( 2 % ) is considerably lower .
Since Be stars are usually rapid rotators this may indicate intrinsically higher rotational velocities in the components of the cluster pair .
Also the IMF derived from the CMDs shows the same slope for both SL 538 and NGC 2006 and is consistent with a Salpeter aIMF .
An estimation of the cluster masses based on the IMF slopes showed that both clusters have similar total masses .
These findings support joint , near-simultaneous formation of the cluster pair in the same giant molecular cloud .