The Clients Team carries out Conflict Checks on all new clients to ensure that we do not find ourselves unwittingly in breach of our professional rules or in an otherwise embarrassing situation.
A Conflict Check is an integral part of matter opening and should also be undertaken immediately following the initial approach by the client (or where you are approaching the client, immediately before you do so). It should be repeated each time you become aware of additional connected party whom you have not already checked.
You must carry out a Conflict Check at the first mention of the party's name. You cannot take details of a potential client instruction until you have received a clear response to your Conflict Check.
To illustrate the import of this rule, consider a situation where you currently act for a client who is about to be sued or engage in a transaction or where you are already engaged by that client on the matter in question. Suppose that colleague fails to undertake a Conflict Check and receives confidential material from the client on the other side to your client. Only when that colleague later comes to do a Conflict Check would they realise that they will not be able to act. However, where they have already acquired material confidential information from the other side, then that may cause you to have to stop acting for your client or to turn your client's new instructions away. That would damage your relationship with your client and you would not be able to earn the relevant fees.
Where a colleague behaves recklessly in failing to undertake a suitable and timely conflict search, we may require them to compensate you for your loss. Naturally, so long as colleagues adhere to our rules, this need not be a concern.
In the event of a potential conflict, the MLRO will speak to the lawyers working on the matter and work with them to ensure that a conflict is avoided. Otherwise you will receive an email giving you the all-clear. You should not under any circumstances contact a colleague or a client whom you believe might be conflicted (or who might cause you to be conflicted) and try and enquire into or resolve the matter yourself. You must not start work or receive confidential information (information in the public domain is not confidential) until you have been given the all-clear. are processed during office hours. See the section entitled "Conflicts clearance" below regarding urgent and out of hours checks.
Our sister firm is not part of our Conflict Checks as we do not operate with a single client list. However, we cannot act directly against them. If the other side is in Australia, it is a good precaution to check Keypoint Law (as the case maybe) has not locally been instructed by the other side