Put a workable conflict of interest policy in place

The main risk is usually not whether people understand the idea of a conflict, but whether the business has a clear process for dealing with one when it arises. A written policy can set expectations around disclosure, decision-making, record keeping, and who steps back from a matter. Without that structure, businesses can end up handling similar issues inconsistently, which can create internal friction or external scrutiny. A policy is especially useful where directors, founders, managers, or staff may have overlapping commercial interests, family links, side roles, or supplier relationships.

A conflict of interest policy will often define what counts as an actual, potential, or perceived conflict, explain when disclosures must be made, identify who receives those disclosures, and set out the steps for managing the issue. That might include recusal from decisions, restrictions on access to information, approval requirements, or internal recording procedures. Depending on the organisation, the policy may also address gifts, outside employment, related-party dealings, procurement decisions, and board-level conflicts. The drafting should match how decisions are really made inside the business, not just governance theory.

The wording usually turns on your structure and the kinds of relationships that create real risk in practice. A founder-led company, a professional services firm, and a healthcare organisation may all need different examples, reporting lines, and approval pathways. We would usually look at who can create or influence decisions, whether there is a board or management layer, and what kinds of external interests are common. If your business collects, uses and shares sensitive information as part of its operations, that can also affect how conflict management and confidentiality points should be expressed.

A generic template may cover the headline concept, but it often stays too abstract to be useful day to day. If the policy does not fit your reporting lines, approval process, or the kinds of conflicts your people actually face, it can be ignored or applied unevenly. For example, a business with founder-directors and related entities may need different wording from a company dealing mainly with employee gifts and supplier relationships. Tailored drafting can make the policy easier to follow and easier to apply when a real issue appears, rather than sitting unused in a folder.

Timing depends on how much existing material you already have and whether the policy is being drafted from scratch or reviewed and updated. In many cases, the process is relatively straightforward because the key task is turning your governance approach into clear policy wording. We will usually gather the relevant background, prepare the draft or review comments, and then make the included amendment round if needed. If the matter expands into broader governance restructuring or ongoing advisory work, that would usually need a separate scope rather than sitting inside this fixed-fee.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Conflict Of Interest Policy service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.