Drafting or revising conflict of interest policies

G.K. Chesterton once said “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people,” but some would argue that that meant that he never saw a conflict of interest policy.   You can bet that series of justly famous beer commercials won’t show The Most Interesting Man in the World line editing such policies.

But being a less interesting person, they do interest me. Indeed,  more so than with most other risk areas, effective compliance here requires close attention to policy creation and maintenance, as a company must clearly define what it considers to be a COI and what its employees should do when faced with an actual, apparent or potential conflict. So, this post collects some resources and thoughts that may be useful for COI policy drafting/revising.

First, it is often helpful to start with a sample.  While codes of conduct are – at least for public companies – essentially required to be posted on the web, the same is not true for more detailed COI policies (at least in the private sector – there are, by contrast,  plenty of examples for universities and other non-profits to be found with a quick search).  But a few corporate COI policies are available on the web, such as those of Best Buy,  Novartis  and PG&E  (the last one is actually part of a code – but is quite detailed, and so worth including here).

Second, while it is helpful to start with a template, one also should base the policy on a COI risk assessment, as discussed in this series of prior posts.

Third, if you are part of a global company you should keep in mind cultural differences that are relevant to COIs as you draft or amend your policy.

Finally, in policy drafting/revising, consider how (if at all) you intend to “check” for COI compliance, such as through a certification regime,  auditing,  and/or technology-based controls, since with each of these the capacity for checking should inform (although not necessarily dictate) the provisions of the policy.

Fascinating stuff? Certainly not!  But that’s okay, because often in the C&E realm what is most interesting is when things go wrong – and it is the mission of the C&E officer to keep work life happily boring.