HSE University Anti-Corruption Portal
Publication Alert: an "Electronic Assistant" for Conflict of Interest Detection

Experts of the Anti-Corruption Centre of the HSE University have published the article preprint devoted to the automated decision support system developed by the Centre to identify conflicts of interest.

As has been already noted (for example, here), it is not an easy task to choose the optimal legal definition of "conflict of interest". The lawmakers are likely to make the relevant term too general or, on the contrary, too complex and including many elements. Whichever approach is chosen, in practice there will almost certainly be difficulties in applying the established concept to everyday situations, primarily because the range of possible ethically controversial situations in real life is nearly limitless, and the attempts to cover all the variety of such situations in legal acts and/or methodological materials appear to fail.

In this regard, some countries (Argentina, Ecuador) are trying to implement other tools to assist public officials (employees) subject to conflict of interest provisions and those responsible for combating corruption to determine whether the situation in question constitutes a conflict of interest. In particular, they have developed analytical modules that allow users to decide whether the situation is characterized as a conflict of interest on the basis of the description of the situation, which is generated from the user's answers to questions with predefined responses.

However, in the above-mentioned countries, the capabilities of such systems are limited to simply assuming the presence or absence of a conflict of interest according to its legal definition and/or the relevant prohibitions and restrictions established by national legislation.

Considering the idea of using such automated decision support systems in the field of anti-corruption to be highly promising, the authors of their paper have extended this approach by developing a software product that not only indicates the presence of conflict of interest indicators in a given situation, but also suggests possible preventive or remedial measures and provides relevant case law covering similar situations (if available).

Considering the idea of using such automated decision support systems in the field of anti-corruption to be highly promising, the authors of their paper have extended this approach by developing a software product that not only indicates the presence of conflict of interest indicators in a given situation, but also suggests possible preventive or remedial measures and provides relevant case law covering similar situations ( if available).

This rule-based " electronic assistant", as in other mentioned countries, "compiles" a description of the situation at issue based on the user's answers to particular questions. All questions are divided into 9 levels and cover different elements of the legal concept of "conflict of interest" and some related aspects:

  1. The subject;
  2. The relation to a criminal case;
  3. The object (the beneficiary);
  4. The nature of the relationship of the subject to the object - in case where property, corporate or other relations were selected at level 3;
  5. The stage of the subject's performance of governance functions towards the object;
  6. The type and the collegiality of the subject's performance of governance functions towards the object;
  7. The area and the range of persons in respect of whom the subject performs governance functions; 7
  8. The unusual and misinterpreted situations of conflict of interest;
  9. The subjects' compliance with the obligations related to the conflict of interest regulation (filing a notice on the conflict of interest arising, following the recommendations of the commission).

To ensure the functionality of the "electronic assistant", there were formed:

1. The database containing:

  • Relevant case law, indicating the values of all-level elements; the case law database included a total of 247 cases involving appeals by public officials (employees) and prosecutors against penalties for failure to take preventive or remedial measures to address conflict of interest (taking into account that proceedings often go through two or more appeal instances, more than 600 decisions were analyzed in total);
  • All-level elements and their values characterizing the situation in terms of conflict of interest presence or absence;
  • "Diagnoses" - recommendations on taking measures to prevent and resolve conflicts of interest, applying disciplinary sanctions in situations characterized by various combinations of element's values;

2. The operation algorithm of the "electronic assistant" (server part), including the list and order of questions to be asked to the user, and indices specifying the correspondence of the selected answers to the materials from the database (values of the elements and their combinations, examples of relevant case law, appropriate recommendations);

3. The user interface built on the above-mentioned algorithm (user part).

The software product from the user's point of view works as follows:

1. The user enters information about the situation in question by answering consecutive questions, while being able to observe the dynamically formed description of the situation in a separate window;

2. After answering all the questions, the user receives:

  • Recommendations as to whether the described situation contains signs of a conflict of interest / any personal interest of the official or his/her related person, what preventive or remedial measures are recommended to be taken in this situation to address conflict of interest, as well as whether there is the necessity to apply disciplinary sanctions;
  • Relevant case law, which can be consulted by the user in order to make a more informed decision on how to act in the situation in question.

At the moment, the tool is mainly targeted at those responsible for preventing and combating corruption (including issues of regulating conflicts of interest) in public bodies (organizations).

In addition, the publication discusses the pros and cons of using such decision support systems with regard to anti-corruption, as well as possible prospects for further development of the functionality of the "electronic assistant", in particular:

  • Adding functions to identify signs of breaches other anti-corruption restrictions and prohibitions related to conflict of interest;
  • Expanding the database by obtaining information from notifications on conflict of interest submitted by public officials (employees);
  • Developing an adapted version of the tool for public officials and employees subject to conflict of interest provisions;
  • Drafting recommendations for appealing decisions taken in the circumstances of conflict of interest.
Tags
Conflict of interest
ICT

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