Run and decide a conflict check

A matter cannot open until a conflict check covering its current parties has been decided. The firm's compliance rules enforce this opening gate.

Run a check

1. From a new matter, choose Run conflict check, or open Conflicts and start a check by hand.
2. The check looks at every party you name against the whole register:
   • names alike above the firm's threshold, so a misspelled name is still found;
   • identity numbers and shared phone numbers or emails, matched exactly;
   • one step of relationships such as directors and spouses, and corporate groups up to the depth set by the firm;
   • every matter each party has appeared on, in any role: open, on hold, closed, archived, and enquiries the firm declined;
   • declined enquiries whose name reads like a name you gave, found under the client who brought them, so a name that was never recorded as a party is still caught.
3. Results are grouped by the party they matched, with the connecting matters, roles and dates. View details on a result lists its matters, live ones first, each opening the matter; a party on more than fifty says how many more there are.

A party you name yourself is never reported for simply being itself, except where it stands against the side you named it on: named as the other side when the firm acts for it on another matter, or named as the client when it stood against another client of the firm. Those read as a full match, because it is the same party. The matter the check is run for is left out of the connections.

Somebody walled from a matter never sees it among a result's matters; the compliance function sees them all.

Decide it

A partner holding the decide permission reads the results, gives every result a disposition and any required note, and records one of three decisions:

• Cleared: no conflict.
• Cleared with waiver: a conflict the clients have consented to. Each affected client must have live signed consent recorded on this check before the decision is accepted.
• Conflict found: the firm cannot act.

Later changes

Adding a party to an open matter runs a targeted check on that party. A check with results waits for a decision and tells the responsible partner. The firm can warn or block time and disbursements while it waits; a conflict-found decision puts the matter on hold.

The register

Conflicts lists every check with its decision, searchable by the names typed on it. Each party's record has its own history of checks.