Category: Code of Conduct

CBRE’s Values and Standards of Business Conduct

CB Richard Ellis distills its corporate values to RISE.

Our corporate values are the foundation upon which our company is built. These values are timeless and transcend all markets, service lines, languages and business cultures.

RESPECT

  • Treat everyone with dignity, value their contributions, and help one another succeed.

INTEGRITY

  • Uphold the highest ethical standards in our business practices.

SERVICE

  • Dedicate ourselves to making a meaningful impact with our clients and in our communities.

EXCELLENCE

  • Aspire to be the best in everything we do and drive for continuous improvement.

CBRE has published their Standards of Business Conduct (2004). They also published their 2007 Corporate Responsibility Report which includes several pages on their ethics and compliance program.

Fannie Mae Code of Ethics

Fannie Mae has their Code of Conduct posted on their website.

So?

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has imposed a revised code of conduct aimed at preventing mortgage brokers and lenders from pressuring appraisers to inflate their estimates of home values.

Now there is a revised Home Valuation Code of Conduct effective May 1, 2009. According to the news release from the FHFA:

The revised Code builds on existing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seller-servicer guidelines to increase the reliability of appraisals for loans sold to the Enterprises for their portfolios or for securitization. The Code applies to lenders that sell single-family mortgage loans to the Enterprises beginning May 1, 2009 and will help assure that borrowers, homebuyers and secondary mortgage market investors receive fair and independent property valuations.

Writing a Company’s Code of Ethics

W. Michael Hoffman of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College penned a 1999 Writing a Company’s Code of Ethics for Perspectives on the Professions.

If employees are not brought into the process in some such way as I have suggested, they will be turned off. The code will seem something “they” have imposed on “us”. That’s not what ethics should be. Ethics should be part of an organizational community. Everything should be done to make employees see that having a code of ethics can strengthen the ethical environment in which they work, as well as protect the company legally. Everything should be done to make employees understand that the code is subject to change, revision, and renewal – and that they will have a part. So, in a sense, the code is never finished.

2008 Update on Anti-Corruption

The Anti-Corruption Committee of the American Bar Association consisting of Leslie Benton, Michael Kieval, Caroline Lindsey, Kerry Mandernach, Philip Urofsky, and Alexandra Wrage prepared an Anti-Corruption update for the Summer 2008 edition of The International Lawyer.

Top Ranked Codes of Conduct

Ethisphere ranked 50 Codes of Conduct.

According to Ethisphere, here are some of the best:

Cisco’s Code of Business Conduct
“An attractive Code that passes with flying colors. Only areas that could be improved are the non-retaliation and reporting sections, and the 13,000 word length.”

Alltel Wireless Ethics Policy
“Excellent supportive learning aids and good adherence to core topics with actionable immediate steps hyperlinked within the document if an employee wants to report a concern.”

Code of Ethics and Whistleblower Programs

A corporate code of ethics is the flip side of the coin of a whistleblower policy: The code of ethics is the principal means of communicating to all staff a strong culture of legal compliance and ethical integrity, while the whistleblower policy is a way to implement such values.

Code of Ethics for Investment Advisers

Rule 204A-1 under the Advisers Act requires investment advisers to adopt a code of ethics. Adoption means establish, maintian and enforcing a written code. At a minimum, the code must include:

(1) A standard (or standards) of business conduct that you require of your supervised persons, which standard must reflect your fiduciary obligations and those of your supervised persons;

(2) Provisions requiring your supervised persons to comply with applicable Federal securities laws;

(3) Provisions that require all of your access persons to report, and you to review, their personal securities transactions and holdings periodically as provided below;

(4) Provisions requiring supervised persons to report any violations of your code of ethics promptly to your chief compliance officer or, provided your chief compliance officer also receives reports of all violations, to other persons you designate in your code of ethics; and

(5) Provisions requiring you to provide each of your supervised persons with a copy of your code of ethics and any amendments, and requiring your supervised persons to provide you with a written acknowledgment of their receipt of the code and any amendments.

17 CFR § 275.204A-1  Investment adviser codes of ethics

Contingent Fee Arrangements in Government Contracts

Section 3.400 of the Federal Acquistion Regulations limit the ability of the federal governmen to enter into contingent fee arrangements. Federal contracts require the insertion of the Covenant Against Contingent Fees:

(a) The Contractor warrants that no person or agency has been employed or retained to solicit or obtain this contract upon an agreement or understanding for a contingent fee, except a bona fide employee or agency. For breach or violation of this warranty, the Government shall have the right to annul this contract without liability or, in its discretion, to deduct from the contract price or consideration, or otherwise recover, the full amount of the contingent fee.

(b) “Bona fide agency,” as used in this clause, means an established commercial or selling agency, maintained by a contractor for the purpose of securing business, that neither exerts nor proposes to exert improper influence to solicit or obtain Government contracts nor holds itself out as being able to obtain any Government contract or contracts through improper influence.

“Bona fide employee,” as used in this clause, means a person, employed by a contractor and subject to the contractor’s supervision and control as to time, place, and manner of performance, who neither exerts nor proposes to exert improper influence to solicit or obtain Government contracts nor holds out as being able to obtain any Government contract or contracts through improper influence.

“Contingent fee,” as used in this clause, means any commission, percentage, brokerage, or other fee that is contingent upon the success that a person or concern has in securing a Government contract.

“Improper influence,” as used in this clause, means any influence that induces or tends to induce a Government employee or officer to give consideration or to act regarding a Government contract on any basis other than the merits of the matter.