Managing Conflict of Interest - Organisation for Economic Co ...

48 Managing Conflict of Interestreference, as there are several laws and policies that aim to preventand address conflicts of interest. A closer examination of these lawsand the jurisprudence on this topic provides the following basicdefinitions:• A real conflict of interest denotes a situation in which a publicofficial has knowledge of a private interest (economic orotherwise, e.g., friendships and family ties) that is sufficientto influence the exercise of his or her public duties andresponsibilities.• A potential conflict of interest entails “foreseeability.” Essentially,when individuals can foresee that a private interest maysomeday be sufficient to influence the exercise of their duty,but has not yet, they are in a potential conflict of interest.• An apparent conflict of interest exists when there is perceptionor reasonable apprehension, which reasonably wellinformedpersons could properly have, that a conflict ofinterest exists.Understanding the Canadian Legal FrameworkPreventing, if not eliminating, conflicts of interest is not and willnever be the result of a single management action or one particularlyeffective law. It requires efforts at many levels. At the personallevel, where employees of a government must live their core values,it requires zero tolerance for corruption including conflicts of interest.At the social level, ethical conduct has to be a primary societalexpectation. At the political level, there must be leadership andwillingness to sometimes admit that things have gone wrong andthings need to be improved.Canada is not immune from ethical challenges, and there havebeen a few high-profile cases in the last few years that have forcedthe country to reexamine the structure and management of importantpublic organizations. In January 2006, a change in CanadianGovernment proposed important new legislation and significantchanges to address these concerns.The approach of the federal government in Canada has beento deal with conflicts of interest through numerous laws, regulations,and policies, and as such, the answers are not all found in onesingle place. Moreover, “different legislation applies to differentADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific