Let’s say you don’t get paid much… say $50,000 a year or at most $100,000 a year.
You do a superior job for a client and he awards you $1 million for the performance.
Compling with the CFA standards, you ask your employer if you can accept the gift and the employer obviously says no.
So you quit you job and then accept the gift anyways.
And after quitting, you continue working for that client as an independent contractor (your employer has no non-compete and no non-solicitation clauses in your employment contract.)
aside from the obvious extremely unlikely scenario where a guy getting paid 50k a year will have any decision making ability to somehow earn a $1 Million bonus.
I bet if you gave anyone the choice between $1 Million now, or the ability to use the CFA charter, $1 million probably wins.
Well, 1 million becomes about 600 - 700K after you pay taxes on it… not enough to retire on so you still need to continue working (and hopefully you still have your Charter at that point.)
My guess is that quitting to accept a bonus is not in itself a violation, just as leaving an employer for another employer who pays you more or has a more attractive secretary is not a violation.
My guess is also that no one would offer $1MM as a bonus in a context like that, unless it was in exchange for something that did violate ethics or the law.
Yeah I don’t see any ethical issue with this extremely unlikely scenario, assuming that the $1 million isn’t coming from a mob boss to facilitate money laundering or something similar. Although in the real world there would have to be something shady going on for someone to make an offer like that of a $1 million ‘reward’. It might also trigger an audit when you make your tax return that year. It would certainly look very suspicious.
on second thought, I can’t imagine who in their right minds would choose to have the CFA letters instead of the $1 million bucks.
you spent say 1000 hours and $1500 bucks on CFA study/fees, and got $1 Million. even a full time job, assuming 55 hours a week, that’s less than 5 months of full time work for $1 million. even if you have to get snippy and complain about taxes, so you still get $600k CASH.
If you get paid only $50k – $100k per year, how can you have a client who can pay you a $1 million bonus. His account must be $50m – $100m at least. Your commissions must exceed $100k.
When I win $300MM in the lottery and employ a money manager, I’m going to give some low-level analyst a $1MM performance bonus to make you all look stupid.
blackomen: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Higgmond: I’ll tell you what I’d do, man: give it to an entry level analyst, man.
blackomen: That’s it? If you had a million dollars, you’d give it to an entry level analyst?
Higgmond: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a rich client I could hook that up, too; 'cause entry level analysts dig clients with money.
I would wonder what favor the poor entry level analyst did for Higgmond… whatever it was (and however skillful) that would be a violation of standard 1D misconduct.