Search results

Conflicts of interest are situations in which a decision maker must balance personal interests with corporate or organizational interests. Often the conflict is unknown to others involved in or affected by a decision. Examples of conflicts of interest affecting the IT profession are examined and categorized in the areas of self‐dealing, accepting benefits, influence peddling, using your employer’s property for personal advantage, using confidential information, obtaining outside employment or moonlighting, and taking advantage in post‐employment. Further, steps are recommended by which individuals and organizations can reduce the risks attributable to conflicts of interest.

The basis of the analysis carried out in this part of the work was the normative and advisory sources included in the system of Russian law in the sphere of corporate conflicts regulation.

For the purpose of a comprehensive study of the existing norms and the definition of promising trends in their development, the provisions of policy acts of a strategic nature, such as the concept of development of the legislation of the Russian Federation for the period 2008–2011 and the concept of 2016 to improve the legislation of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2021 were studied.

The study examined the provisions of industry-specific codified acts of both regulatory and advisory nature, such as the civil code of the Russian Federation, the code of corporate conduct (now invalid), and the code of corporate governance, approved by the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Russia from April 10, 2014.

Among the special Federal laws that form the basis of positive legal regulation of corporate conflicts are: Federal law No. 205-FL “On amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation”; Federal law No. 82-FL of May 19, 1995, “on public associations”; Federal law No. 193-FL of December 8, 1995, “on agricultural cooperation”; Federal law No. 7-FL of January 12, 1996, “on non-profit associations”; Federal law No. 79-FL of July 27, 2004, “on the state civil service of the Russian Federation”; Federal law No. 7-FL “on non-profit associations” of December 25, 2008, g. 273-FL “on combating corruption”; the Federal law of March 2, 2007 No. 25-FL “on municipal service in the Russian Federation.”

In the course of the study, the authors actively formed an empirical base and turned to judicial and arbitration practice, which were: the Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of July 18, 2003, No.14-P “in the case of verification of the constitutionality of the provisions of Article 35 of the Federal law “on joint stock companies,” Articles 61 and 99 of the civil code of the Russian Federation, Article 31 of the tax code of the Russian Federation, and Article 14 of the Arbitration procedural code of the Russian Federation; the Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of March 15, 2005. No.3-P “in the case of verification of the constitutionality of the provisions of paragraph 2 of Article 278 and Article 279 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation and paragraph 2 of paragraph 4 of Article 69 of the Federal law” on joint stock companies; resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation of June 20, 2007, No. 40 “on some issues of practice of the provisions of the legislation on transactions with interest” ; resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of June 26, 2018, No.27 “on challenging major transactions and transactions in which there is an interest”; Resolution of the FAS of the Ural district of June 23, 2004, No. F09-1854/04-CL, etc.

The concept of “conflict” in terms of etymology, as well as social conflictology and social sciences is studied in the chapter on the example of the works of L. Coser, J. Von Neumann, N. Morgenstern, V. Yadov, T. V. Novikova, etc.

Studying corporate conflicts in legal doctrine, the authors turned to the works of D. I. Dedov and A. A. Kirillov.

The theory of interest and “legally protected interests” were studied thanks to the works of Rudolf von Ihering, who as the main idea behind the development of mechanisms for their balance. In the Russian doctrine, the issues of subjective and legitimate interests were developed in the works of Y. S. Gambarov, V. P. Gribanov, N. M. Korkunova, and G. F. Shershenevich.

The essence of socially significant interests that receive legal regulation from the state and become legal (legal) interests was studied on the basis of the works of N. V. Vitruka, R. E. Gukasyan, O. S. Ioffe, E. A. Krasheninnikova, and N. I. Matuzova.

The methodological basis of the study was a set of general and particular scientific research methods: observation, complex and diversified analysis, synthesis, analogy, comparison, explanation, proof, induction, deduction, reduction, elementalism, systematic approach, methods of comparative law, specific sociological research, historical, logical, statistical, etc.

To summarize the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority report on broker-dealer conflicts of interest.

Discusses background of recent FINRA information collection effort on conflicts of interest upon which FINRA based the report. Outlines FINRA objectives for firms to review their current conflicts management systems. Discusses three key areas where firms should focus attention, including examples of possible practices firms can undertake: a firm's general conflicts of interest framework across all business lines; new products creation and distribution; and compensation practices.

The report highlights areas that FINRA expects broker-dealers to consider in reviewing their compliance policies and procedures to assess whether firms should implement changes to their own conflict management frameworks. FINRA will evaluate whether to pursue future conflicts management rulemaking if broker-dealer firms do not make adequate progress on conflicts management.

Practical explanation by experienced financial services lawyer.

This study investigated the causal effects of conflict styles on outcomes of a negotiation with fully‐integrative (win‐win) potential. Participants were 444 graduate and undergraduate students who enacted a negotiating role play. While negotiators using the integrating style were more effective than those using the dominating style, they were no more effective than those using the obliging or avoiding style. There were no differences in either equality or equity of outcomes across all four styles. Integrating‐style negotiators were the most efficient, but there were no differences in efficiency across the other three styles. Pursuit of self‐interest and pursuit of other‐interest interacted in their prediction of effectiveness. Pursuit of self‐interest led to equality, and pursuit of self‐ and other‐interest enhanced efficiency.

The aim of this article is to formulate and represent some common characteristics about conflict of interest as a global legal occurrence. All the conclusions made here are based upon 11 European countries legislations. As do similarities so do differences in every separate legislation give us the reasoning that there is a common European model on conflict of interest. The aim of the article is to provoke a discussion on this topic which is to help creating a new and better European legislation in the field of conflict of interest.

The basic methods used for writing the article are comparison and analysis on the judicial system concerning conflict of interest in the treated European countries.

Conflict of interest is extremely important governmental instrument in the fight against corruption and spending funds or using public properties for private purposes. Besides some of the analyzed countries, i.e. Germany, where such an act is treated as a crime according to the criminal code, the conflict of interest is an administrative offence. Finding conflict of interest is a matter in the field of administrative control, so when there is a conflict of interest, it follows that administrative punishment should be enforced. There exists a conjunction between the substantive staff dealing with conflict of interest in much of the mentioned countries. Two main types of finding were described – by a specialized governmental body or by the appointment authority or by some other internal for the departmental system body.

The article claims that conflict of interest aims for higher public trust towards institutions and to consolidate democracy. As far as conflict of interest is often applied when the concern is spending a considerable funds, including supranational, there comes the question for the need of a new supranational legislation. A review was made on the conflict of interest in European countries. Free movement of people, goods and capital in EU boundaries demands a broadening of the existing legislative system.

The purpose of this study is to identify the relation between the conflicts of interest in the Shari'a Supervisory Board (SSB) in the Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) and six independent variables: the SSB executive position, the SSB remuneration, the relation between the SSB members and the Board of Directors (BoD), and the multiple memberships in Islamic funds, issuers of Islamic bonds (Sukuk), and companies trading in capital markets.

The variables are articulated in six hypotheses and tested by ordinary least square regression. The data were collected via a questionnaire which was sent to the shareholders, the BoD, and the SSB members of all of the IFIs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The results indicate that the SSB executive position, the relation between the SSB members and the BoDs, and the membership in Islamic funds and issuers of Islamic bonds are significantly related to the conflicts of interest, whereas remuneration and membership in companies trading in capital markets have insignificant relation.

The paper does not address the impact of SSB ownership in the IFIs, or the relation between the SSB and the shareholders, or the impact of the corporate governance codes on the relationship between the IFI and the SSB.

The study recommends testing the hypotheses in other geographies to generalize the results, and measuring the impact of the SSB ownership on the conflicts of interest as well as its relation with shareholders, regulators, and clients.

The paper provides practical implications to the SSB members and the BoD in the IFIs and calls for setting a maximum number of SSBs for each SSB member.

This study contributes to the literature gap of the SSB role in the governance of IFIs. It is believed to be one of first studies that provide empirical evidence about the SSB conflicts of interest in the IFIs of the GCC region.

Relying on research from social psychology and business ethics, this paper aims to argue that the current massive regulatory regime surrounding the attempts to curb what is perceived to be damaging conflicts of interests in the financial industry is based on misguided assumptions, and that the trend of increasingly detailed rule-making, supervision and sanctioning in this area might be counter-effective. This should cause financial services legislators and regulators to be cautious when proposing more detailed rules as solutions to perceived problems. The paper argues that disclosure is no remedy for a harmful conflict of interest, and that such an obligation can only be based on the client’s right to know about the conflict. This right, however, does not, in itself, justify all the extensive and detailed regulation in the area. The paper ends with a recommendation for more research into the moral reasoning ability of financial services professionals, as well as the interplay between judgment and rules in the finance industry.

The paper relies on research within behavioural moral psychology, and applies it to business ethics with the aim of discussing the impact of regulation on moral reasoning within the finance industry.

Regulation might lead to a decrease in moral reasoning, which is the premise of proper handling of conflicts of interest. Additionally, disclosure of unavoidable conflicts of interest might even strengthen the negative consequences of such conflicts.

More research should be conducted within the financial services sector about the effect of regulation on individual judgment.

The paper proposes that care should be exercised when proposing increased and complex regulation to avoid unintended and adverse consequences for the financial services industry.

The paper synthesises existing research within different fields – such as moral psychology and analytic business ethics – and applies it to financial regulation.

Life insurance salespeople are hired to pursue the best interests of life insurers on the one hand, the salespeople are also expected to pursue the best interests of customers on the other hand. However, the best interests of life insurers are not necessarily consistent with the best interests of customers. This study aims to investigate the influences of interest conflicts on the life insurance salespeople’s ethical attitude and ethical intention by focusing on the role of ethical leadership and ethical training.

Four types of interest conflicts are studied. Questionnaires are administered to a total of 757 full-time life insurance salespeople. Data analysis is performed by using analysis of variance tests and partial least squares regression.

The main results indicate that the types of interest conflicts change the life insurance salespeople’s ethical attitude and ethical intention. Moreover, ethical training could make the life insurance salespeople become more concerned about the interests of customers, but not the interests of life insurers. The results also challenge a belief that ethical leadership and ethical training will often have direct, consistent and significant impacts on the ethical attitude and ethical intention of life insurance salespeople.

Interest conflict is an important issue in the literature on financial regulation. The potential for life insurance salespeople to behave unethically has also received extensive attention by researchers. This study provides clarification of the relationships among interest conflicts, ethical leadership, ethical training and ethical decision-making of life insurance salespeople. This is the first study that analyzes the relationships. The results of this study may provide some contributions to the relevant literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze coordination mechanisms in buyer-supplier collaborations in new product development (NPD) and the influence of conflicts of interest. Inter- and intra-organizational coordination mechanisms are investigated.

The findings reported are based on a multiple case study consisting of four cases at two firms. Theoretical sampling consisted in selecting two projects with opposite levels of conflicts of interest between the collaborating firms. In total, 38 interviews were conducted with employees in buying and supplying firms.

The findings illustrate how inter-firm conflicts of interest affect the way firms coordinate both externally and internally. A high level of conflicts of interest related to information leakage emanated in more distant relationships with limited coordination between buyer and supplier. This restrictive relationship is also reflected in limited coordination between the buyer’s purchasing and research and development (R&D) units.

Generalizability is limited, as only two large industrial firms have been studied, but with four projects investigated in detail. The study shows that in situations, in which there is a conflict of interest, external coordination affects the firms’ internal coordination. Conflicts of interest in buyer-supplier NPD collaborations are managed by limiting information sharing, which is reflected in the way R&D and purchasing are coordinated.

Managers need to be aware of that a firm’s fear of sharing information with its supplier can also transfer to intra-firm unit coordination, as R&D may limit its information sharing with purchasing. On the other hand, in buyer-supplier collaborations with little conflict of interest, firms can form close relationships. Such a close relationship is also mirrored in how R&D and purchasing openly share information and coordinate.

This research contributes to an increased understanding of coordination in buyer-supplier innovation collaboration. Firms not only need to consider their external coordination but also how coordination with suppliers may affect the way they coordinate in NPD projects within the firm between purchasing and R&D.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the relationship between sport and business has increased the complexity of ethical issues affecting contemporary sport management. Specifically, this paper seeks to define conflict of interest and how it is manifested in both business and sport.

The paper provides a conceptual discussion of the issue of conflict of interest as it relates to the management and governance of sports organizations. Relationships between business ethics, governance and sport management are examined in the quest to understand conflict of interest and its prevalence in and relevance to sport management.

Conflicts of interest within the sport industry may have the same structural elements as those occurring in mainstream business, such as benefits, obligations and issues of trust, but it is the higher societal expectations and values placed on sport and sporting organizations that provide the key points of difference.

Through collaboration with sport management practitioners, via inductive in‐depth research, a clearer definition of conflict of interest and the range of situations in which it may occur can be developed. It is through a continued research effort in this area that sport managers will be better able to both identify and manage conflicts of interest as they occur.

It is the lack of definitive examples or guidelines for recognition of an actual or a potential conflict of interest that appears to cause the greatest confusion within sport management. By drawing together the key concepts found within the extant literature, a clearer understanding of what constitutes a conflict of interest is provided by this paper.