DP5

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

DP5

Should Engineer A treat the professional duty of honesty as a categorical constraint that prevails over any commercial or fiduciary obligation to advance the selling firm's interest — including when Engineer B's stalling creates legitimate commercial pressure — or may Engineer A subordinate the honesty duty to the commercial interest in closing the transaction when the counterparty is acting in bad faith?

Engineer A faces a tension between the professional duty of honesty — which the NSPE Code identifies as a hallmark engineering quality owed to the public, employers, clients, and colleagues — and any commercial or fiduciary obligation Engineer A holds as chief negotiator to advance the selling firm's interest in closing the transaction. Engineer B's stalling behavior created the commercial pressure Engineer A sought to relieve, raising the question of whether negotiation bad faith by one party alters the ethical calculus for the other.

Treat the professional duty of honesty as a categorical side-constraint that prevails over any commercial or fiduciary obligation to advance the selling firm's interest, recognizing that the NSPE Code does not recognize a negotiation exception to honesty obligations and that Engineer B's stalling behavior provides no ethical mitigation for a misleading statement.

Treat the professional duty of honesty as one factor to be weighed against the commercial fiduciary obligation to advance the selling firm's interest in closing the transaction, on the basis that engineering's dual identity as both a business and a learned profession creates a bifurcated ethical standard in which commercial norms govern commercial conduct and the NSPE Code's honesty provisions are not designed to override legitimate commercial agency obligations.

Advance the selling firm's commercial interest in closing the stalled negotiation through honest means — setting a deadline for the offer, withdrawing the offer temporarily, seeking other buyers, or accurately disclosing the true state of market interest — thereby satisfying both the professional duty of honesty and the commercial obligation to the selling firm without requiring any subordination of one to the other.

Engineer A