Jamison is a junior research analyst at Howard & Howard, a brokerage and investment banking firm. Howard & Howard’s mergers and acquisitions department has represented the Britland Company in all its acquisitions for the past 20 years. Two of Howard & Howard’s senior officers are directors of various Britland subsidiaries. Jamison has been asked to write a research report on Britland. What is the best course of action for her to follow?
A.Jamison may write the report but must refrain from expressing any opinions because of the special relationships between the two companies.
B.Jamison should not write the report, because the two Howard & Howard officers serve as directors for subsidiaries of Britland.
C.Jamison may write the report if she discloses the director relationship between the two companies.
Solution
B is correct. This question involves Standard VI(A) Avoid or Disclose Conflicts. The question establishes a conflict of interest in which an analyst, Jamison, is asked to write a research report on a company that is a client of her employer. In addition, two directors of the company are senior officers of Jamison’s employer. Best practice would be to avoid the conflicts of interest by not providing a research report on companies that are clients of or have a director relationship with Howard & Howard. If the conflicts are not avoided, both the client relationship and director relationship must be disclosed by Jamison in her research report.
Answer C is incorrect because Jamison would be disclosing only one of the conflicts.
Answer A is incorrect because whether Jamison expresses any opinions in the report is irrelevant to her duty to disclose all conflicts of interest. Not expressing opinions does not relieve the analyst of the responsibility to disclose the special relationships between the two companies.
协会更改答案了？我看到别的人问的以前的答案不是选择B。
这题我选了A，”refrain from expressing any opinions“ 我以为是等同分析师把利益冲突的公司放入restricted list然后不发表观点只陈述事实，结果这道题直接选择拒绝，到底这里应该怎么权衡呢？
那未来遇到放restricted list和直接拒绝现在应该选择直接拒绝了？因为”Not expressing opinions does not relieve the analyst of the responsibility to disclose the special relationships between the two companies.“
