Conflict of Interest Policy

Potential conflicts involving suppliers, customers, competitors, or decision-makers should be disclosed early so project responsibilities and purchasing decisions remain clear.

Disclosure is most useful during onboarding, procurement review, vendor selection, technical recommendation, or any project step where outside relationships could affect decision-making.

Scope

This policy applies to project scoping, quoting, supplier selection, purchasing recommendations, customer referrals, subcontractor involvement, technical recommendations, and any project decision where an outside relationship could affect judgment.

Disclosure expectations

Relevant supplier relationships, customer overlap, competitor concerns, or personal interests should be raised before they can influence project scoping, purchasing, technical recommendations, or approval steps.

• Supplier, vendor, subcontractor, or reseller relationships connected to a recommendation.
• Customer overlap where the same technical information, machine process, or purchasing decision could affect multiple parties.
• Financial or personal interests that could reasonably be seen as influencing project advice.
• Restrictions from confidentiality agreements, exclusivity terms, or active customer obligations.

Project decisions

IKODB works to keep responsibilities, purchasing decisions, vendor coordination, and customer recommendations clear so project decisions can be reviewed on their technical and commercial merits.

Where a potential conflict exists, the project team should document the concern, clarify who is making the decision, and agree on whether any limitation, alternate reviewer, customer approval, or vendor separation is required.

Procurement and recommendations

Technical recommendations should be based on project requirements, maintainability, availability, compatibility, support path, cost, and customer constraints. Any relationship that could affect a recommendation should be disclosed before the customer relies on that recommendation.

Customer information boundaries

Conflict review should also consider confidentiality boundaries. Information learned from one customer should not be used to advantage another customer, supplier, or outside party unless the information is already authorized for that use.

Escalation

If a concern is uncertain, it should be raised early with the customer or IKODB project contact. Early disclosure is preferred because it allows the project team to adjust responsibilities before a decision becomes difficult to unwind.