Fathers and children

With Father’s Day coming up this weekend, it seems like a good time to check in on conflicts of interest that can arise from arise from being a dad. Given the powerful instincts at work, parenthood is indeed fertile ground for COIs, as illustrated by the immortal words of the first Mayor Daley, who, in speaking to colleagues on the  Cook County Democratic Committee, defended his having directed a million dollars of insurance business to an agency on behalf of his son John by saying: “If I can’t help my sons, then [my critics] can kiss my ass. I make no apologies to anyone.”  

In the past year, the biggest COI story involving fathers has been the investigation into hiring of Chinese “princelings” by investment banks – and there is no sign of this story going away any time soon. The most recent addition (just in the past week) to the list of those apparently under scrutiny for such practices is  Deutsche  Bank. And, in what is apparently another recent development relating to this inquiry, the former head of JP Morgan’s  investment bank in China was arrested in late May.  However, one should not paint with too broad a brush here, as when it comes to the legality  and ethicality of hiring relatives the devil will likely be in the details – meaning that while some banks may well have crossed applicable legal/ethical lines  others that hired “princelings” could still have acted appropriately (depending on  a wide variety of relevant factors).

The most troubling of other recent fatherhood COI stories concerns the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, in which football legend Michael Platini – a member of the  FIFA  executive committee – played a role. As noted in The Telegraph: “Mr Platini’s son Laurent became the chief executive of Burrda, a Qatar owned sports company” not long after the father’s vote in favor of Qatar’s candidacy,  although the latter has denied that there is any connection between the two events.

Out of fairness to the Platinis, I need to emphasize, first, that the controversial employment of the son was previously known; what is new is a wide variety of other troublesome facts about the choice of Qatar that have only recently surfaced – that may frame how one looks at this hiring; and, second, that a special investigator hired by FIFA is apparently due to submit his report on the matter by the end of July – after which more definitive ethical judgments can be made.  However, even if the hiring of the son is ultimately found to have been done with the purest of intentions, there is a more general learning  worth noting here – which is that, when gauging the possible appearance of a COI, consider if there may be a broader context (i.e, one that is beyond your control – or even current understanding) that, upon becoming known, might influence how others ultimately see the ethicality of one’s actions. (For more on the difficulty of mitigating apparent COIs see this earlier post.)

Finally, the most recent father-and-son COI issue to surface in the US comes to us courtesy of Fox News:  “Vice President Joe Biden’s visit Saturday to Ukraine in support of the country’s new democratic government is renewing concerns about his youngest son being hired by a Ukraine company promoting energy independence from Moscow. Hunter Biden will be working for the company while his father and others in the Obama administration attempt to influence energy policies and other issues of the new government, which is gripped in a struggle with Russia and pro-Russian separatists to control the county.” The article also points out: “American conflict-of-interest laws and federal ethics rules essentially do not regulate the business activities of adult relatives of those who work in the White House, and there’s no indication that the situation crosses legal or ethical lines.”  Still, there is presumably a little of the late Mayor Daley in all of us fathers, so this bears watching.