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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hedgefund who wrote (159735)	8/13/2019 11:04:41 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Respond to of 196481

HF -- The ethics rules I was citing are those which are generally accepted throughout the public and private sectors. A government agency may, and often does have special rules governing conflicts of interest, which may be different, even from agency to agency. I should have been more specific about a conflict of interest involving a DOJ executive and an issue before the courts that involved a company that did business with his law firm. If Qualcomm paid his law firm an annual retainer, it means the law firm was on call to answer any legal question that Qualcomm believed needed some outside opinion. In that case, there would be a conflict of interest when one of the firms's lawyers now heads a government division with an interest in Qualcomm's current legal matters. If, on the other hand, the law firm was hired only for a special task, such as doing due diligence on a proposed acquisition, or negotiating with a labor union, and if a lawyer in that firm had nothing to do with those tasks, then it's hard to believe any conflict of interest exists just because that lawyer now works in a government agency with an interest in antitrust matters involving Qualcomm.