Edited by Jeff Kaplan
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Codes
Nearly all corporate codes of conduct have COI provisions, but there is a great diversity of approaches to COIs in codes. This section will explore various issues in drafting COI provisions of general codes of conduct. It will also look at COI provisions in codes for suppliers, directors and others.
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It was – at least according to this Blog – the most interesting COI story of 2015 (as of February of that year): the head of the New York/New Jersey Port Authority (the PA) – David Samson – had persuaded United Airlines to reinstate a money-losing route that was convenient for his personal use in return for his giving them favorable treatment on certain PA matters. But what has happened since? And what can C&E professionals learn from it?
In July of 2016, Samson “pleaded guilty to one charge of bribery for accepting a benefit of more than $5,000 from” the airline. “At the same time, United–which was not criminally charged–agreed to pay a fine of $2.25 million and pledged to institute ‘substantial reforms’ to its compliance program.” And earlier this month the airline settled related charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Above all, that settlement – which involved violations of the FCPA’s books-and-records and internal accounting controls provisions – is a reminder that an effective anti-corruption compliance program must be addressed to domestic bribery, as well as the foreign kind. In that regard, it is worth remembering that the US is not at or near the top of the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index: it is tied for 16th. And for certain parts of the country – including New Jersey, where Samson worked (and I live) – the picture is worse.
Yet, in my experience some companies don’t address domestic bribery risks with the same rigor that they do foreign ones – even those involving “cleaner” countries than the US. So, this settlement may be a useful opportunity for companies to consider whether their anti-corruption policies and procedures – including risk assessment – are sufficient to address domestic bribery.
Less significant but perhaps more interesting to C&E practitioners is the SEC’s discussion of the issue of code of conduct waiver – and specifically the failure to get a waiver of the code’s gift provision in connection with the reinstatement of the unprofitable route. The SEC noted that a companion document to the code had provided that: “exceptions would be granted only in accordance with the following procedure: Generally, requests for exceptions must be submitted in writing to the Director – Ethics and Compliance Program. Approvals for an exception will also be in writing and must be obtained in advance of the action requiring the exception.” Yet “no one at United sought a waiver of United’s Code of Business Conduct prior to initiating the … Route for Samson’s personal benefit. Nor did anyone at United seek or obtain an exception to Continental’s Ethics and Compliance Guidelines [which was still in effect following the merger of the two carriers] prior to initiating the … Route. As a result, no written record reflecting the authorization for the … Route was prepared or maintained, as required by United’s Policies.”
Code of conduct waiver-related requirements are based on, among other things, rules of the New York Stock Exchange and SEC . They derive,, to some extent, from the Enron case. Yet in recent years I’ve heard very little about them. That may be because the NYSE and SEC standards apply to a narrow band of senior officials at public companies. Yet waiver requirements can go beyond this, as United’s ostensibly did.
So, is there any takeaway for C&E professionals from this aspect of the United case? One idea would be to include questions about waivers in audit interviews – which might pick up information that a question about violations might miss. A second is to include a discussion of waivers in training boards and senior executives – who may have at one point known the Enron-related origins of the waiver provision requirement but have likely forgotten this piece of C&E history.
Finally, for those revising their codes of conduct, one might consider requiring that waivers be granted only upon a clear showing that doing so would be in the best interests of the Company – and that all meaningful circumstances surrounding a waiver be documented in a complete and accurate way. Indeed, given that the SEC has taken the occasion of the United case to speak about code waivers, this is an area where companies should take a moment to make sure they are doing everything right.
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Last week the Institute of Business Ethics published its 2015 Ethics at Work survey of employees in the UK and Western Europe, available for free download here. One of the findings was that “employees tend to be more lenient towards conducting personal activities during work hours, than other practices.”
For instance, in Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy and Spain), more than 90% of respondents found it unacceptable to pretend to be sick to take the day off, charge personal entertainment to their employer or engage in “minor fiddling of travel expenses.” Eighty-five percent thought it was not okay to “use company petrol for personal mileage” and 76% said the same of “favoring family or friends when recruiting or awarding contracts.” However, only 59% had such a view of using the internet for personal use during work hours and only 52% said that it was wrong for employees to make personal calls from work.
Frankly, I’m surprised that the disapproval percentages for the last two questions were as high as they were. To the extent that respondents could tell (from instruction, context or otherwise) that they were part of an ethics survey perhaps that – based on the notion of “framing” – played a role in the results. But regardless of this methodological quibble, the authors’ conclusions about employees’ views of personal use of company time and resources are almost surely sound.
In this connection, they note that the fairly widespread acceptability of “using the internet during hours is perhaps indicative of the way in which lines between work and home have increasingly become blurred over the past few years, as the 21st Century business landscape becomes increasingly mobile and flexible and less reliant on employees being physically present in the office.” This makes sense to me, and I think that a successful conflicts of interest/use of company resources regime is one that accepts these (and other similar) modern realities.
That is, for many employees (particularly those with young children), a total bar on using phone or intranet for personal purposes is simply impractical, and thus cannot be a true ethical issue – as there is effectively no choice involved. The same is obviously not true with respect to fudging expenses or faking sick days.
The alternative, harsher view would be that embodied in a classic episode of the TV series The Office (the US one), concerning (among other things) a “time theft” policy applicable to the company – under which even a four-second yawn is seen as a transgression. Besides being impractical and unfair, branding reasonable use of company time/facilities as morally wrong could actually lead to other, more worrisome wrongdoing – by making reasonable uses the first step on a “slippery slope,” as described here.
On the other hand, reasonable personal use really should be limited to uses that a) are truly personal, and do not further other business interests; and b) cannot harm the company by subjecting its tangible or intangible property or other interests to risk. For instance, many years ago a client of mine learned that an employee was using company phones to run an “escort service.” Although he apparently did so only during his lunch hour, the reputational harm to the company was clear enough to justify firing him.
Finally, and in a somewhat related vein, you might find of interest this prior post on the connections between ethical standards at work and those in our home lives.
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The most prominent COI story in the past few days comes to us from Mexico where, as described in The Economist, that country’s president Enrique Peña Nieto “announced that he, his wife and his finance minister will become the first subjects of a conflict-of-interest investigation” that was “triggered by revelations that [they] bought houses on credit from affiliates of a building firm that has benefited from government contracts.” But for me the most intriguing story of the week (and indeed the year, at least so far) comes from the ethical wonderland that I call my home – New Jersey.
As reported initially by the Bergen Record: “Federal prosecutors have [launched a probe] into a flight route initiated by United [Airlines] while [David] Samson was chairman of the [Port Authority, which] operates [Newark Liberty Airport]. The route provided non-stop service between Newark and Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina — about 50 miles from a home where Samson often spent weekends with his wife. United halted the non-stop route on April 1 of last year, just three days after Samson resigned under a cloud. Samson referred to the twice-a-week route — with a flight leaving Newark on Thursday evenings and another returning on Monday mornings — as ‘the chairman’s flight,’ one source said. Federal aviation records show that during the 19 months United offered the non-stop service, the 50-seat planes that flew the route were, on average, only about half full. United… was in regular negotiations with the Port Authority and the Christie administration during Samson’s tenure over issues that included expansion of the airline’s service to Atlantic City and the extension of the PATH train to Newark…” A story from NJ.Com added that the flight’s booking rate of 50% was significantly lower than “the rate of 85 percent or higher common among carriers” and also that the Chair of the NJ assembly’s transportation committee said the benefit to United of running this unprofitable route “could be PATH. It could be how much they pay for landing planes. It could be for how flights are dispatched at the airport. It could be a multitude of things. And it could be none of them.”
Assuming for the sake of discussion that it is indeed at least one of those or other financial benefits, the case should be interesting to COI aficionados for several reasons.
First, the main law enforcement challenges to investigating the matter will likely be (as it is many COI/corruption cases) proving wrongful intent. Presumably, Samson knew enough not to document what was seemingly happening here (although his comments about the “chairman’s flight” may suggest otherwise), but what about United? Given how cost conscious airlines have been in recent years, one imagines that someone at the company would have needed to document why they were running half full planes. Moreover, for various reasons this seems like the sort of arrangement that would have been known at a reasonably high level in the company (although finding documentation of that may be a taller order).
Second, it will also be interesting to see what role, if any, United’s compliance program played in these events. In light of how many people at the airline could well have had some suspicion about these flights, it would be pretty damning if none of them called the C&E helpline. On the other hand, if the issue was raised internally and buried, that would be even worse.
Third, it may be noteworthy that while the Company’s code of conduct does have a section called “When the government is the customer,” the bribery discussion there is limited to international transactions. Perhaps like a lot of US companies, United’s compliance team failed to grasp the risks of homegrown corruption generally (and the Jersey variety in particular). Other companies may wish to revisit their own codes to see if they could be subject to the same criticism.
Two final notes. First, the facts of this case are just beginning to emerge and the speculations in my post should not be read to suggest that Samson or United are necessarily guilty of corruption. Seriously. Second, for an earlier story about a possible COI involving Samson (and his connections to the ethically challenged Christie administration) see this post and the article linked to therein.
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Last month, Pro Publica published an extensive report regarding a dispute on whether Goldman Sachs should be sanctioned by the Federal Reserve for failing to have a firm-wide policy on conflicts of interest. An examiner for the Fed had argued in favor of such an action but the firm contended – successfully – that the COI provision in the company code of conduct coupled with COI policies for various of its divisions was good enough.
At least for C&E aficionados, the story is an interesting one (and the issue, in my view, a close call), particularly given Goldman Sachs’ recent COI history. (See this post and this one.) But for readers of this blog the piece may be most useful as an occasion to ask: Does my company have the COI policy that it needs?
To begin, a great many businesses don’t need a stand-alone COI policy. For many what’s in the code of conduct is policy enough. But there are, in my view, quite a few companies that should have stand-alone policies but don’t.
Five things to ask in a COI policy needs assessment
Certainly where companies have client relationships that could give rise to COIs there is a good reason to have a stand-alone policy, as such businesses generally face a greater array of COI risks than do others. Such risks tend to warrant a fuller discussion of COI standards and mitigation than can fit into a code of conduct. Put otherwise., companies that have relationships of trust with clients tend to have higher COI risks – both in terms of likelihood and impact – than do other sorts of businesses, and that should be reflected in how formal and extensive the related mitigation should be.
But other types of organizations should consider drafting stand-alone policies too, at least if they:
– Have had more than their share of COIs in recent years, as a stand-alone policy can help signal to key constituencies resolve in dealing appropriately with COIs.
– Face more diverse, complex, non-obvious or culturally challenging COI possibilities than the average company has. The more there is to say about different sorts of COI risks, the greater the need for a stand-alone policy, as there simply won’t be enough room in the code to do justice to all pertinent issues.
– Have significant COI-related process needs – in such areas as disclosure, management and auditing. Here too the code may not offer enough space to deal with the company’s requirements.
– Face heightened COI expectations for other reasons (e.g., non-profits, or other organizations that could be held to a “Caesar’s wife” standard of ethicality).
And don’t forget organizational justice
Even companies that don’t fit into any of the above categories should consider developing a stand-alone COI policy as a means of promoting “organizational justice.” As noted in this earlier post: “The special harm that COIs can cause to organizational justice arises from their frequently personal nature: because COIs often involve a personal benefit to an individual employee that is denied to others, the latter (i.e., rule abiding employees) can feel personally harmed (from a relative perspective) by the COI in a way that they would not feel, for example, with an antitrust offense or violation of export regulations.” Implementing a stand-alone COI policy can thus, in my view, help elevate the confidence employees have in the overall ethicality of their companies. Of course, to do so the policy must be sufficiently promoted and enforced. But being successful here could have a ripple effect – by enhancing trust that management is committed to doing the right thing generally, which can be utterly vital to compliance and ethics program efficacy.
Note that while this consideration presumably applies to all companies, it does not mean that all companies need stand-alone COI policies. But it is a factor that all companies should weigh in determining whether to implement such a policy.
Drafting a policy
If one does opt to create a stand-alone COI policy there are obviously lots of choices to be made in determining the content of the policy, and the links below to prior posts in the COI Blog might be useful in that regard.
To start, you might see this overview, which includes links to several leading companies’ policies (that could be helpful samples from a form – as well as substance – perspective).
Regarding the key question of what COIs to address in the policy, a fairly comprehensive list is included in this post about certifications (the content of which is equally applicable to policies).
Here are some more specific discussions:
– G&E generally and gifts between employees.
— Supervising family members in the workplace.
— Moonlighting.
– Serving on another company’s board.
Next, regarding standards for allowing COIs to continue and related process issues, see this post and this one.
Finally, note that within the above posts there are links to many other posts and resources that might be useful in drafting or revising a COI policy.
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What is the most potent type of conflict of interest? To my mind, those involving family members – as discussed in this earlier post on nepotism – are generally the strongest of all, given how deeply rooted our instincts to help our kin are.
But being in another’s debt would seem to be pretty powerful too – because of the control of one’s life that it can place in the hands of others. Moreover, compared to COIs involving an “upside” (e.g., moonlighting for one of your employer’s vendors) “debt conflicts” seem more likely to corrupt behavior – in part because of the behaviorist phenomenon of “loss aversion,” which holds that seeking to avoid a loss is generally a more potent force in shaping behavior than is achieving a gain. Indeed, you don’t need to peer deep beneath the mind’s surface to grasp the power of debt for, as Dickens’ Mister Micawber observed using plain old arithmetic, the smallest debt can clearly be the source of large-scale ruin. (“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”) Thus, on various operative levels, a debt-based conflict can be particularly pernicious.
The most interesting recent “debt conflict of interest” case come to us from the U.S. Securities and Exchange which found that “certified public accountant James T. Adams repeatedly accepted tens of thousands of dollars in casino markers while he was the advisory partner on subsidiary Deloitte & Touche’s audit of a casino gaming corporation. A marker” – the SEC pointed out, for those few unfortunate souls who have never seen Guys and Dolls – “is an instrument utilized by a casino customer to receive gaming chips drawn against the customer’s line of credit at the casino. Adams opened a line of credit with a casino run by the gaming corporation client and used the casino markers to draw on that line of credit. Adams concealed his casino markers from Deloitte & Touche and lied to another partner when asked if he had casino markers from audit clients of the firm.” Based on this obviously egregious behavior (which, I should add, involved far greater sums than those discussed by Mister Micawber), Adams – who ironically had also been Deloitte’s Chief Risk Officer – agreed to be “suspended for at least two years from practicing as an accountant on behalf of any publicly traded company or other entity regulated by the SEC.” The summary of California regulations is something to be read to learn about the online gambling and the sites to rely on.
This was as clear a debt conflict case as one might hope to find (meaning, of course, hope never to find again). But debt also comes in less obvious shapes too.
Consider this recent story from a trial now being held in the UK, the salient points of which (for this blog at least) are as follows: “A former UBS AG … banker told a London court that paying $7,100 for strippers to entertain consultants advising a German utility on a disputed derivatives deal didn’t create a conflict of interest.” Looked at it as an “upside conflict” – meaning the consultants receiving free entertainment – maybe it is indeed not a powerful a COI (although personally having never been to a strip joint that’s just a guess). But this particular sort of upside has an element of “debt conflict” too: given the embarrassing nature of the expenditure the consultants could well be concerned that their dirty secret would be revealed, i.e., they would likely be indebted to the bank for keeping quiet. Of course, there would be reason enough to hide $7100 worth of even wholesome recreation paid for by a vendor, but it presumably has less potential to embarrass – and thus cause serious reputational loss – than does being entertained by strippers.
Finally, how should information about “debt conflicts” be used in C&E programs? Certainly, debt should be included in the interests section of the code of conduct or COI policies – which it usually, but not always, is. Moreover, if one is providing examples of COIs in training and other form of C&E communications it may be worth mentioning there as well. The point here is not merely to identify debt as one of many sources of potential COI, but to help give examples of COIs that will resonate with employees – which I think debt-related ones often will do, precisely because of the above-described control aspect. And powerful examples of the effects of COIs can help to strengthen compliance in this area generally.
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Conflict of interest policies were in the news last week. The first story comes from the world of medical schools. As described in a recent issue of Science Codex, “U.S. medical schools have made significant progress to strengthen their management of clinical conflicts of interest (CCOI), but a new study demonstrates that most schools still lag behind national standards. The Institute on Medicine as a Profession …study, which compared changes in schools’ policies in a dozen areas from 2008 to 2011, reveals that institutions are racing from the bottom to the middle, not to the top. In 2011, nearly two-thirds of medical schools still lacked policies to limit ties to industry in at least one area explored, including gifts, meals, drug samples, and payments for travel, consulting, and speaking. Only 16% met national standards in at least half of the areas, and no school met all the standards.” This finding is unfortunate because –as discussed in an earlier posting – COI policies in medical schools have been shown by research to be effective in actually reducing COIs.
A different type of COI policy story concerned a whistleblower lawsuit brought by a “former senior bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York [against] her ex-employer, which claim[ed] she was fired because she refused to change her findings that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. … lacked a firm-wide conflict-of-interest policy.” As best I can tell from the various pieces about the case, the examiner felt that although the firm had divisional COI policies and a COI section in its code of conduct it was deficient in that it lacked a stand-alone, firm-wide document in policy form addressing COIs of the sort that was evidently common in other investment banks. Of course, as with any lawsuit, we will learn more here as the case progresses. But the initial complaint alone does raise what is for the COI Blog an interesting question: what exactly counts as a COI policy?
The answer here will depend on the context. For many (indeed most) organizations a code of conduct provision on COIs is policy enough. Indeed, as can be seen from some of the links in this earlier post, COI provisions of a code can be as detailed as those in a stand-alone policy.
But for large, complex organizations – and particularly those with complex COI issues, as an investment bank likely has and Goldman Sachs clearly has had (see posts here and here) – a stand-alone, firm-wide policy seems like a good idea, as a way of ensuring sufficient attention is devoted to the area and that standards are applied thoroughly and consistently throughout the organization. And, it is hard to see what the argument against having such a policy would be.
This is not to suggest that I think that there is merit to the whistleblower’s claim or that the firm was deficient in this respect. Rather, as with most news-related posts on this blog, I’m only using the story of the day to make a more general point about COIs.
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One of the top COI stories of the past week concerned how ESPN’s financial relationship with the NFL may have caused it to withdraw from collaborating on a documentary about the league’s dealing with players’ traumatic head injuries. Earlier in the month another sports news COI issue – whether John Henry’s purchase of the Boston Globe would impact that paper’s coverage of the Red Sox, which Henry also owns – received a fair bit of attention. So did the purchase of the another paper – the Washington Post by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, which raised somewhat weightier COI concerns than did the Globe purchase. This therefore seems like a good moment to take a look at press conflicts.
As with many areas of business-related conflicts, press conflicts exist on two levels: organizational and individual. Organizational conflicts arise out of the press ownership – e.g., the concern with the Henry and Bezos acquisitions, and other financial relationships at the entity level, e.g., ESPN’s deal to broadcast NFL games, including, most obviously, relationships with advertisers. Of course, the more that newspapers are part of larger business entities, the greater the likelihood of such risks will be. With individual COI’s the interest is usually at the reporter (or perhaps editor or producer) level.
Additionally, in discerning the relevant ethical framework for press COIs it is important to consider the press’s critical role in maintaining our democratic society. That is, given that trust in the press is essential to maintaining that role – like other “market failures” discussed in this recent post – preventing harm to that trust arguably should not be left totally to the push and pull of market forces. This would suggest the need for a strong legal or ethical approach to addressing COIs in the press.
However, any legal response of this sort would be problematic as a form of interference with press freedom. For this reason, the ethical (and compliance) measures to prevent COIs in the press should be especially potent.
This is not an area about which I had much prior knowledge, but I was pleased to learn that the NY Times has what appears to be a good set of standards regarding COIs. For instance, regarding advertising COI, the Times’ standards provide: “Our company and our local units treat advertisers as fairly and openly as they treat our audiences and news sources. The relationship between the company and advertisers rests on the understanding that news and advertising are separate – that those who deal with either one have distinct obligations and interests, and each group respects the other’s professional responsibilities” and goes on to set forth detailed guidance regarding a number of contexts in which the paper’s advertising and news functions might need to deal with each other. With respect to individual COIs, the same source provides guidance on a) journalists paying their own way to and at events they cover, b) receiving of gifts and entertainment; c) steering clear of advice giving roles; d) entering competitions and contests; e) collaborations and testimonials; f) public speaking and the receipt of speakers fees; g) family-based conflicts; h) financial conflicts; i) free-lance work; j) dealing with competitors; and k) social media use.
The Times standards make an interesting read for one who spends a lot of time reviewing C&E policies and procedures. Indeed, it would be rare to find COI policies as detailed as these in the great majority of industries.
Needless to say, the Times is not unique in this respect. The BBC also has what seem to be a very comprehensive and rigorous set of COI standards for its journalists. Of course, just as the map is not the territory, sound ethical policy and procedures are not the same as a full-fledged compliance and ethics program. But they are a good foundation for one.
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For information on the larger world of ethics in journalism (beyond that of COIs) visit the website of the Center for Journalism at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Journalism.
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As a matter of etiquette, there are various types of gifts that one should never give to a boss or other colleague. Here is a list of eight such gift types (including “adult” items and cash).
Virtually all corporate codes of conduct have limits or guidance concerning employees receiving gifts and entertainment from those doing or seeking to do business with the company. Most (but not all) codes also seem to address employees giving gifts to third parties – particularly actual or potential customers. But much rarer in codes are discussions of purely internal (i.e., employee-to-employee) gift giving. Make sure you click here and understand the ideal gift of appreciation for you employees.
Of course, the risks of a significant conflict of interest arising from this sort of gift giving are presumably less than in either of the external contexts, at least as a general matter. But one can readily envision situations involving actual or apparent conflicts based on internal gift giving, and one does occasionally hear of gifts in this context that clearly “cross the line,” even if no line is explicitly drawn in a company’s code.
So, as with any C&E standards, it may be best to be explicit, for instance, by providing in a code or COI policy document that gifts between employees should:
– be consistent with the spirit of the company’s COI policy,
– be otherwise appropriate to the situation, and
– not be – or be likely to be seen as – an attempt to influence the recipient’s business judgment.
Soliciting gifts can also raise ethical issues, for instance, if a supervisor lets those in his work unit know when his birthday is, in a way that suggests that something be done for the occasion. While I’ve seen this before (involving repeated reminders about the individual’s birthday), I don’t think it is common enough to warrant mention in a code.
Finally, in the public sector these issues can be even more significant – as evidenced by this story from a few years back about a loan made by Chris Christie, then a prosecutor, to a colleague in his office who, by some accounts, was in a position to use her position to help his campaign for governor (although both the colleague and Christie denied this was the point of the loan).
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This is the second post this week on COIs involving specific types of business organizations – the first post was on non-profits. This coming weekend we’ll look at some of the COI stories that have been in the news of late and next week we will resume our series on ways to assess COI risks.
In an earlier post on the murky legal landscape regarding COIs we noted that the fiduciary duty of loyalty operates as a “default” in certain circumstances – imposing various COI-related obligations in the absence of an agreement to the contrary. But when, one might ask, would anyone give up a duty to be treated in a less than loyal way? One example lies in the area of joint ventures.
The governance and operation of JVs can certainly raise conflict of interest concerns. For an employee of a JV’s co-owner who is either on the JV’s board or is seconded to the JV whose interests to be treated paramount? Given the inherent tension in situations of this sort, those involved have good reason to clearly articulate applicable duties and expectations.
Indeed, as noted in recent Gibson Dunn publication Recent Trends in Joint Venture Governance : “Partners negotiating joint ventures are spending increasing amounts of time developing codes of conduct and policies regarding conflicts of interest. These codes and policies are intended to legislate how business dealings between the joint venture company and a venture partner or its affiliates will be conducted and define the rights and responsibilities of the joint venture company and the venture partners regarding corporate opportunities. They often reflect the nature of the industry in which the particular joint venture will operate. In technical joint ventures, for example, the focus of conflict of interest policies is often the ownership, use and commercialization of intellectual property rights.”
Additionally JV agreements sometimes directly address – and waive – fiduciary duties. As the Gibson Dunn publication further notes: “The managing boards of joint venture companies also owe fiduciary duties to the venture partners under applicable law. But venture partners generally have a direct voice on the board. In addition, when they enter into the venture, they have the opportunity to negotiate specific contractual rights designed to protect their interests. In fact, in many circumstances, they will waive their common law or statutory fiduciary protections, relying instead on a set of negotiated contractual protections.”
Bottom line: JV owners are considered “consenting adults” who can not only waive individual COIs but the right to be treated in a loyal way by their directors and employees.
I should emphasize that there is a whole host of compliance risks in JVs beyond COI ones. And this recent post in Corporate Compliance Insights – “Joint Ventures and Compliance Risks: The Under-Discovered Country” identifies three categories of measures that companies should take to promote C&E in JV’s in which they invest: screening the contemplated JV partners; structuring the JV agreement to promote compliance; and once the JV is operational, having a C&E officer work on an ongoing basis with key company personnel who serve as JV board members or seconded employees in senior positions to manage compliance.
Also, this week Compliance Week is running a story “JV Compliance Takes Varsity Skills”; it is for subscribers only so I can’t link to it, but mention it as further indication that C&E issues surrounding JVs are a hot topic these days.
Finally, related to the issue of COIs and JVs is this post concerning COIs arising from serving on another company’s board of directors.
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