New tools to prevent conflicts of interest in the Federal Public Administration

In short

On June 28, 2022 the Minister of General Comptroller’s Office (CGU), Wagner Rosário, participated in the “Circle of Meetings”, an event organized in Brasília to discuss the prevention of conflict of interest by agencies and entities of the Federal Government. Within the scope of the event, two tools were presented: Panel for Prevention of Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Interest Treatment Manual – Analysis of Conflict of Interest Risks and Authorization for performing Private Activity, which are directed to the dissemination of the prevention and expected conduct when facing potential conflict of interest situations.

More details 

According to the information provided:

• The tools are directed to the training and management of questions linked to the conflict of interest prevention.
• The Panel discloses questions about conflict of interest and requests for authorization to perform private activities via SeCI (Eletronic System of Conflict of Interest Prevention), making it possible to follow up the questions, theirs status and related decisions.
• The Manual has the intent to provide guidance to public agencies and entities responsible for analyzing the risks of conflict of interest. It will also serve as a consulting source for public employees that have questions about the prevention of situations of this matter.
• Legal obligations of preventing conflict of interest for employees of the Federal Government are provided by the Conflict of Interest Law (Federal Law No. 12,813/2013).
• These tools, however, will be also important as a consulting source for risk management of private entities and implementation of its internal policies. This is because decisions within SeCI will be published by CGU and can be consulted by any individual.
• The new practices adopted by the Public Administration reinforce the tendency of larger controlling regarding conflict of interest situations.
• Policies and effective controls to avoid conflict of interest help both public and private entities to avoid their involvement in acts that may be considered fraudulent, corrupt, illegal or non-ethical, mitigating risks of liability and reputation.
• Both public and private entities must be alert and take effective actions able to avoid it, whether abstaining itself from certain conducts or adopting mitigating measures on regard of the situation. That way, the expected conduct must be exposed in a clear way in the internal policies, just like the controls must be able to detect any violation of internal guidelines.

Trench Rossi Watanabe’s Compliance Group is available to assist its clients on planning, implementing and monitoring compliance measures that are effective and consistent with the legal and regulatory requirements against conflict of interests situations.