DP5

DecisionPoint
http://proethica.org/ontology/cases#DecisionPoint

DP5

Should the board ground its condemnation of Engineer C's pre-selection promise in the NSPE Code's antitrust-constrained competition provisions, or rely instead on the foundational Code principles of public welfare, honesty, and honorable conduct — together with independent procurement law — to sustain the ethical prohibition against pre-selection?

The board must address whether the antitrust-constrained scope of the NSPE Code — which removed explicit competitive conduct provisions following DOJ antitrust actions and First Amendment rulings — weakens the ethical enforceability of competition-based obligations against Engineer C's pre-selection promise, or whether foundational Code principles of public welfare, honesty, and honorable conduct independently sustain the anti-pre-selection norm.

Base the ethical condemnation of Engineer C's promise primarily on whatever competition-related Code provisions survived antitrust modification, accepting that the Board's authority to regulate competitive procurement conduct is correspondingly limited in scope and enforceability.

Ground the ethical condemnation of Engineer C's promise in the foundational Code principles of public welfare, honesty, and honorable conduct — which remain fully intact after antitrust modifications — together with the independent authority of applicable federal, state, and local procurement laws, without relying on removed competition-specific provisions.

Explicitly acknowledge that the antitrust-constrained Code creates a structural gap in direct competition regulation, decline to extend Code analysis into that gap, and defer entirely to applicable procurement law as the operative ethical standard — treating the Code's role as supplementary rather than primary in this procurement context.

NSPE Board of Ethical Review