Past work together, family ties, a private company in an adjacent field. Ties like these almost never appear in the minutes, but they almost always leave traces in open information.
What is a conflict of interest
A conflict of interest is a situation in which the person making a decision has a personal, business or family interest that could influence it. It doesn’t necessarily mean wrongdoing, but it justifies a check, and sometimes it changes the whole picture.
Where it affects you
- Tenders: a tie between a committee member and the winning bidder.
- Management: a CEO who privately owns a company in a field adjacent to the company he runs.
- Deals: a person who is supposed to make a decision and is connected to one of the parties.
- Legal proceedings: prior links between litigants and the person deciding the case.
What a check looks for
A conflict of interest check looks for connections between people and entities:
- Previous work in the same organization or on the same project.
- Family ties and social connections.
- Ownership of or office in companies, and shared boards of directors.
- Shared addresses, phone numbers or representatives.
- Shared posts, photos and events on social networks.
Every such finding is checked against another source. A link that appears only once, in a single source, is still just a hypothesis.
What it looks like in practice
In both cases the question was focused, and the deliverable was a documented intelligence picture that could be handed to a lawyer or to management.
What to do with the findings
The findings are documented together with their sources, so you can work with them: present them to management, pass them to a lawyer, or decide there is nothing more to check. A negative answer is an answer too, and it saves an unnecessary proceeding.
This article describes a research method and is not legal advice.
