Dear Editor
The term conflict of interest (COI) is widely used, yet many people are unaware of its meaning and significance.
The Journal of Business Ethics defines conflict of interest as “a situation in which a person has a private or personal interest sufficient to appear to influence the objective exercise of his or her official duties as, say, a public official, an employee, or a professional.” This private or personal interest is often motivated by money, but can also arise from other factors such as love and ambition.
It is important to take note of the word ‘situation’ from the definition, as a COI can be mistakenly bundled with corruption. For example, a lawyer in need of money is working with a client.
A representative of the party that the client is in dispute with approaches the lawyer.
The representative proposes to provide the lawyer with a large sum of money if the lawyer agrees to botch his client’s case. In this situation, the bribe offer creates a conflict of interest between official duty to the client and personal duty to self.
The action taken when faced with a COI determines if the lawyer is corrupt. A COI alone is not an improper act, but rather a natural phenomenon. It is how the COI is dealt with that may be improper.
In addition, an unaddressed conflict of interest can raise suspicion about whether the service provider is being impartial, which can place trust, loyalty, and integrity into question.
In the aforementioned example, the lawyer chooses not to disclose the bribe offer with his client. The client later finds out that the lawyer was offered a bribe. As a result, the client can no longer trust the lawyer, even if the lawyer may have rejected the bribe.
To further illustrate the nature of a COI, we will look at another example. A basketball referee has an upcoming game between two high school teams.
He notices that a member of one of the teams is his beloved niece. A conflict of interest is formed even though an improper act has not yet been committed.
His official duty is to make fair calls during the game. However, he also has a personal duty to the happiness of his niece. If he referees the game, he may make unwarranted calls to benefit his niece’s team.
On the other hand, in an overzealous attempt to display fairness, he may make unwarranted calls to hurt his niece’s team.
Either way, his decisions are at risk of being subjective. Therefore, if the referee’s connection with his niece is well-known and he chooses to ignore the conflict of interest, trust may be lost and his job may be executed poorly.
By looking at these examples, we know that a COI itself is not unethical, but if dealt with incorrectly, a COI can lead to suspicion of objectivity and even an improper act.
When faced with a conflict of interest, one should identify it, disclose it, and remove oneself from the situation. Otherwise, the official duty and trust upheld by the service provider may be jeopardized.
Sincerely,
Nicel Mohamed-Hinds
