in the handbook, client list in any forum is property of the employer. What if member or candidate memorise the client list for the purpose of future competition against current employer after leaving their current employer?
Knowledge and skill is not the property of the employer and can be transferred to future employer or their own company, client list in members or candicate’s memory is also their property so it should not be a breach, right?
sometimes the client list can be very long, and memorising all of the them is not possible, what if someone memorise the largest clients for future solicitation after leaving current employer.
Are these breaches of any of the standard? Just need to clarify in case it comes up in the exam.
I’ll give you an analogy that should be so obvious it doesn’t need clarification:
If someone wrote a screenplay, and asked you to read it, and you memorized all of it and then wrote it down later to claim as your own, is that ethical? After all, you didn’t copy the screenplay. You just memorized every word and wrote it down yourself.
Your memory is your own, so technically if you remember the largest clients six months down the line, it’s not a breech of duty.
If you remember them long enough for the ride home, and then write it down on paper or in a computer, legally it could be argued that you copied the list for yourself just as if you wrote it on paper while sitting at your employer’s computer.
Most employment and consulting contracts have a non-solicitation clause in there anyway, and you are obliged to obey the terms of that contract.
According to CFA, memorizing client lists is not a breach of ethical standards. I’ve seen examples where it’s ok to first quit your job, and then start calling clients you know. If you make copies of a list at your former employer, that is an ethical breach.
Agree with ohai. If I saw it on an ethics question I would say that memorising the client list and recalling the information once you left the firm is not a violation.
What if member or candidate memorise the client list for the purpose of future competition against current employer.
In my eyes, deliberately memorizing information for this purpose is little different from absconding with physical client lists. (Except that it would be more difficult for the employer to prove in court.)
I believe that what the CFA ethics is intended to cover is the situation where you remember pieces of information from your day-to-day work activities; not where you use your memorization skills to steal the employer’s data in a wholesale fashion.
I recall an ethics question (CFAI?.. Shwesser?) on this exact scenario.
But how do you distinguish memory of client details and deliberately memorising client details?
Perhaps in the course of my job I deliberately memories client names and telephone numbers so I don’t have to look it up each time I call them. If I then find a new job and use that information to contact my clients, is that a violation?
What if I did that, while at the same time was looking around for a new role? Is that a violation?
What if you started work and thought to yourself, at some stage in the future I may want to start my own business and may want to contact these clients, so I’ll memorise their details. Then, 7 years later you leave and set up your own business and conctact those clients using the memorised details? Is that a violation?
This reminds of the usual grey/black/white stuff of ethics questions - thank god I’ve got the CFA already…
Just because it can’t be proved wrong or illegal doesn’t make it ok to do.
Ethics is an *outlook* on right action, not a set of rules to plumb for loopholes. The intention matters in ethical thinking and matters less in legal thinking.