Our Advice. Your Advantage.

It is Avisa Partners’ company policy that a conflict search should be made whenever we are asked to undertake new work for a customer before any sensitive information is exchanged, regardless whether the customer is existing or new. It is our duty to inform any customer of any potential conflict risk as soon as we detect one.

A conflict can be technical or more of a corporate nature. 

In the most extreme form, a conflict can be purely emotional (customer A would not like us to work for customer B even on a matter in which A has no interest whatsoever). 

Not only do emotional conflicts deserve as much attention as technical ones, they are also more subtle and hence require extra attention.

In the light of the above, we rarely assume prima facie that there is no risk of conflict. 

Exceptions include situations where:

• the proposed work is for an existing customer and on a matter that we already dealt with for them,
• the proposed work is for a customer in an entirely new industry for us, with no potential conflict with existing customers in upstream and downsteam industries,
• no other party is or could be involved, and the issue is completely stand alone (example: late notification in merger cases),
• the new matter is a repeat transaction for a regular customer in circumstances where it is highly unlikely that a conflict might arise,
• a conflict search was carried out less than three months previously and there is no obvious reason to refresh it.
• the proposed work is for an existing customer and on a matter that we already dealt with for them,
• the proposed work is for a customer in an entirely new industry for us, with no potential conflict with existing customers in upstream and downsteam industries,
• no other party is or could be involved, and the issue is completely stand alone (example: late notification in merger cases),
• the new matter is a repeat transaction for a regular customer in circumstances where it is highly unlikely that a conflict might arise,
• a conflict search was carried out less than three months previously and there is no obvious reason to refresh it.

To be sure there is no conflict we need to know:

• the identity of the proposed customer(s)
• a clear and concise description of the mission or engagement
• the identities of other parties involved where these may be material to the conflict check (e.g. the name of the target in the case of an M&A transaction, the names of counterparties) and a brief description of their respective roles
• other background which you think could be useful and relevant to ensuring that the conflict check is as complete as possible
• the identity of those companies the customer would not like to share advisors with, if any

If there is exceptional confidentiality, price sensitivity or other sensitivity then the identity of the proposed customer or the subject matter can be camouflaged, for example by:

• excluding the work type (e.g. relying only on the name of the proposed customer)
• referring to a generic industry sector rather than a specific entity
• including the names of a number of other irrelevant entities so that it is unclear which of the various parties named are those against which the search is being conducted