Recently an MBIE investigator told me that I couldn't ply my trade due to a conflict of interest between them and a role that I had undertaken over a year previously.
In 2015/16 I undertook contract work for the NZ Companies Office. It involved managing an Integrity Unit and it’s staff. From time to time we would have interactions with other regulators from across MBIE.
Whilst in that role I was unable to play my trade as a private investigator due to time frames.
Veritas Investigations Ltd (VI) was set up in 2016 with a partnership between Dave Pizzini and I, we started our work in April 2017.
The MBIE investigator told me that I had provided data to him in my role with the Companies Office which related to a current client of VI. I was unable to remember any such interactions with the investigator relating to the client.
Prior to undertaking any work for this client I had declared my previous role with the Companies Office to them. They were comfortable with my professionalism and integrity and we continued to engage.
The MBIE investigator and I entered into an email conversation about his perception of my conflict of interest.
I considered any conflict of interest was between myself and my client. I had declared my previous work to the client. I struggled to see a conflict of interest in this situation.
In my mind the MBIE investigator was confusing conflict of interest with duty of confidentiality. Emailing the investigator I told him that I had a duty of confidentiality to the Companies Office relating to my work there. In the same way I had a duty of confidentiality to my client not to disclose client information to him.
Integrity means everything o me. Maintaining the duty of confidentiality both ways is paramount to that and my continued professionalism in this field and my life in general.