Companies differ
on how they handle personal and institutional conflicts of interest. This
difference may reflect disagreement over whether a conflict of interest is
inherently unethical, or whether one must be exploited for any conduct to be unethical. I take the
former position: that to be in a conflict of interest is indeed inherently
unethical. At the very least, being in a conflict of interest can trigger or
spawn additional conflicts of interest. I point to Goldman Sachs’ response to
an institutional stockholder’s corporate governance proposal as a case in
point. That case can be contrasted with how the BATs board reacted in terms of
corporate governance to bad public relations and a failed IPO.
The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.
The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.