Conflict of interest in emerging-market expert calls

Conflict of interest screening is usually designed around an assumption that nobody states out loud: that the pool of qualified experts is large enough that excluding the conflicted ones still leaves you with a choice. In deep, liquid markets that assumption mostly holds. In smaller markets it does not.

The consequence is not that conflicts are more common in African markets. It is that the same conflict is harder to route around, and the temptation to treat it as immaterial is stronger.

Why small pools change the problem

In a market with three licensed operators in a sector, the people who understand that sector well have almost all worked for one of them, advised one of them, or regulated all three. Professional networks are dense. Former colleagues become counterparties. A regulator becomes a consultant, then a board member.

None of this makes anyone unsuitable. It makes the declaration more important, and the scoping of the conversation more important still. A screening process that only asks "are you currently employed by the target" will pass someone whose brother-in-law sits on the target's board, or who is three weeks from signing an advisory contract with the competitor your client is also looking at.

Current employment is the weakest of the tests

The strongest signal in a dense market is not employment but exposure: who benefits, or is disadvantaged, if the client acts on what the expert says. That covers equity holdings, advisory relationships, pending mandates, litigation, family relationships in closely held firms, and political appointments.

It also covers the reverse case, which is discussed far less: an expert with a grievance. Someone dismissed from the target company can be an excellent source on how it operates and a poor source on whether its management is competent. Both facts should be visible to the client before the call, not inferred from its tone.

Employer consent is a real constraint, not a formality

Many of the best-placed experts in African markets are currently employed. Their employer's policy may permit external consulting, permit it with notification, or prohibit it. Whichever it is, the expert must know, and must confirm it before the call.

This is not a box-ticking exercise done for the platform's benefit. The person carrying the consequence of an unauthorised conversation is the expert. A network that leans on experts to take calls they should decline is transferring risk onto the least protected party in the transaction.

Restricted topics should be screened at the brief, not the call

The cheapest place to catch a problem is the brief. If a question can only be answered with material non-public information, it should be identified and rewritten before anyone is sourced. Doing it later means an expert has been recruited to answer a question they must refuse, and the refusal happens live, under time pressure, with a client listening.

Screening the brief also produces a better question. "What is the target's current order book" is unanswerable by an insider and improper to ask. "How does order visibility typically work for firms of this type in this market" is answerable, useful, and safe.

Documentation is the part everyone underestimates

A conflict process that is not recorded did not happen, as far as a compliance review is concerned. The record needs to show what was declared, what was screened, what was excluded and why, who moderated, and what was discussed. It needs to survive the departure of everyone involved.

This is the unglamorous half of the work, and it is the half that determines whether a research programme withstands scrutiny two years later.

The standard worth holding

The test is not whether a conflict is technically disclosable. It is whether a reasonable person, reading the file afterwards, would be comfortable with how the conversation was arranged. In small markets, that standard is harder to meet, which is precisely why it should not be relaxed.