What is the appearance of a conflict of interest?

Answer 1

Conflict of interest is a philosophic idea in which you are partial or biased because of personal gain or proclivity for yourself or another. It can't be illegal because you're allowed to look out for yourself and others at will. Conflict of interest only comes up in the legal arena when your interest in yourself may conflict with you giving accurate or impartial answers to questions during your testimony.

Where elected or appointed officials are concerned, states have laws governing what officials and candidates can and cannot do in their interactions with private individuals and corporations. Politicians who provide preferential treatment can face adverse public opinion, and even criminal charges including bribery or malfeasance.

Answer 2

conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, a politician, executive or director of a corporation or a medical research scientist or physician, has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results from it. A conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the person, profession, or court system. A conflict can be mitigated by third party verification or third party evaluation noted below-but it still exists. Note: This summary incorrectly implies that conflicts of interest only apply to professionals. A conflict of interest arises when anyone has two duties which conflict - for example an employee's duty to well and faithfully perform their work as purchasing manager, and that same employee's familial duty to their sibling who happens to be tendering for the sale of widgets to the employee's employer. In that case the employee has a conflict of interest, despite the fact that they are not a lawyer, doctor, politician etc

Answer 3

Example #1: The 'Judge' for a custody hearing on a minor child is related to one of the parents of the child. This judge would be considered to have a conflict of interest because they were related to one of the parents and may pass judgment for the parent they are related to, regardless of the evidence in the case.

Example #2: Your lawyer is a member of the board of directors of a business, or owns stock in the business, which you are filing a lawsuit against. This lawyer would have a conflict of interest because they are tied to the business and may or may not do certain things that could affect the outcome of the lawsuit.

Answer 4

There is no standard penalty for "conflict of interest". It depends on the conflict and the effects of the conflict. Penalties can be determined only after the conflict has been discovered and the damage assessed. Often, the conflict is discovered before any damage is done. In any conflict of interest there is a potential for violation of numerous laws when the conflict is kept secret.

A conflict of interest is when an individual or company or other entity is in a position to have multiple interests in the same situation, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other.

For example, if I produce sugar and I am also lawmaker, I can help enact a statue that would ban others from producing sugar in order to maintain my monopoly on sugar. This would be considered a flagrant conflict of interest - others are more subtle.

Answer 5

If you were a politician on a planning committee, your responsibility would be to look after the interest of the public with your decisions.

If however you also had some buildings you wanted to build, it would be in your in your personal interest to get plans for this approved.

The two interests are said to be in conflict and you should recuse yourself in your political role when your planning application comes up for decision.

This is just one example of a conflict of interest there are many others across all walks of life.