CausalLink_Enter Contract With Foreign Go
CausalLink_Form Corporation for Joint Ven
CausalLink_Negotiate With Consulting Firm
CausalLink_Pursue Private Consulting Oppo
CausalLink_Time Resignations Strategicall
Competitive Procurement Integrity Undermined
The market for competing consulting firms on this project has been distorted; the appearance of competitive procurement masks what is effectively a pre-arranged outcome; systemic trust in government-adjacent procurement is damaged.
Concurrent with and following the negotiation and joint venture formation phases
As an automatic consequence of the engineers' insider advantage and pre-arranged joint venture, the competitive procurement process for the project's design and supervision contract was structurally compromised. Competing consulting firms were effectively excluded from genuine competition without their knowledge.
The Board believes that the men in question have violated the spirit of the Canons and Rules, although the evidence does not prove them to be in violation of specific paragraph, as now worded.
Beyond the Board's finding that the engineers violated the spirit of the Canons, the timing of their resignations — occurring at or about the moment the contract negotiations with the foreign government were concluded rather than before those negotiations commenced — is itself a discrete ethical wrong that the Board's analysis underweights. The strategic synchronization of resignation with contract finalization was not incidental; it was a calculated maneuver that allowed the engineers to exploit their insider status, their access to the foundational plans, and their personal relationships with owner representatives throughout the entire negotiation period while still clothed in the authority and credibility of federal employment. This conduct breaches the Faithful Agent Obligation independently of any question about whether confidential information was formally misused, because an agent who covertly negotiates a private transaction that directly competes with or succeeds the work of the principal — while still drawing the principal's salary and holding the principal's trust — has divided loyalty in a categorical and irremediable way. The Board's proposed supplemental rule, while directionally correct, should therefore address not merely the prohibition on concluding promotional negotiations while employed, but also the obligation to disclose the existence of such negotiations to the federal employer at the earliest practicable moment, so that the employer may assess conflicts, reassign duties, or seek recusal of the negotiating engineers from any further work on the project.
The Board's analysis focuses almost exclusively on the departing U.S. Agency engineers while largely passing over the ethical culpability of the private consulting engineering firm that knowingly structured the joint venture. This asymmetry is analytically incomplete. The private consulting firm was not a passive recipient of an unsolicited approach; it actively negotiated with at least two groups of government engineers, selected one, and incorporated that group's insider knowledge and owner relationships as a deliberate competitive asset in its bid for the hydroelectric contract. A firm that knowingly leverages the revolving-door advantage of former public servants — particularly when those servants have not yet resigned and when the project in question is the very one on which they acquired their specialized knowledge in public service — participates in the same ethical violation it facilitates. The principle of Section 19 collective reputation protection applies with equal force to the consulting firm: by structuring a joint venture whose competitive advantage rested materially on insider access rather than on independent professional merit, the firm cast a cloud of doubt over the integrity of the entire procurement and over the engineering profession's standing in international development work. The Board should have articulated that the consulting firm bore an independent obligation to decline participation in any joint venture arrangement where the prospective partners' primary contribution was knowledge and relationships acquired in a public capacity on the identical project being procured.
The Board's proposed supplemental rule, while a necessary corrective, risks being simultaneously over-inclusive and under-inclusive in ways that the Board did not fully examine. It is potentially over-inclusive because it could chill legitimate post-government careers whenever an engineer has contributed to any phase of a large, multi-year infrastructure project: if the rule bars promotional negotiation for work on any project for which the engineer gained 'specialized knowledge,' the scope of disqualifying knowledge is undefined and could encompass routine professional experience that any competent engineer in the field would possess. The rule is simultaneously under-inclusive because it addresses only the negotiation phase and does not resolve whether a cooling-off period — and if so, of what duration — would render subsequent participation ethically permissible. The counterfactual of resignation followed by a meaningful cooling-off period before re-engagement is left unaddressed, yet it is precisely the mechanism by which the tension between the Engineer Mobility Right under NSPE Policy 52 and the Post-Public-Service Conflict Avoidance principle could be resolved in a manner that is both fair to engineers and protective of procurement integrity. A complete supplemental rule should therefore specify: (1) a defined threshold distinguishing project-specific insider knowledge from general professional expertise; (2) a mandatory disclosure obligation to both the public employer and the procuring client upon commencement of any private negotiation touching a project on which the engineer holds such knowledge; and (3) a presumptive cooling-off period, calibrated to the significance of the engineer's role in the public-phase work, after which competitive participation would be permissible subject to full disclosure to all competing firms and to the client.
In response to Q101, the precise ethical threshold was crossed not at the moment of resignation, nor at the moment of contract execution, but at the earlier moment when the U.S. Agency engineers, while still drawing a government salary and holding active access to the hydroelectric project's foundational plans, began substantive negotiations with private consulting firms with the specific intent of securing a role in executing the very project they were publicly tasked to plan. The Board's proposed supplemental rule gestures toward this threshold by prohibiting 'promotional negotiations' during employment, but it fails to define what distinguishes a permissible exploratory career inquiry from a prohibited promotional negotiation. Without a clear behavioral marker — such as the moment an engineer communicates a specific project opportunity to a prospective private partner, or the moment insider project knowledge is implicitly or explicitly offered as a competitive asset — the rule provides insufficient fair notice. Engineers need to know whether a general conversation about future employment crosses the line, or only a specific proposal tied to a named project. The Board should have anchored the threshold to the moment project-specific insider knowledge becomes the operative basis for the private negotiation, because that is the moment the public trust relationship is instrumentalized for private gain.
In response to Q102, the Board committed a significant analytical asymmetry by concentrating its ethical censure almost exclusively on the departing U.S. Agency engineers while treating the private consulting engineering firm as a largely passive or peripheral actor. This framing is ethically untenable. The private consulting firm knowingly structured a joint venture with engineers who had authored the preliminary plans for the identical project being procured. It was not an innocent recipient of talent; it was an active architect of a competitive arrangement that incorporated insider advantage as a structural feature of its bid. Under the principle that professional firms bear independent obligations to avoid exploiting incumbent advantages in procurement, the firm's conduct warrants direct ethical scrutiny. The firm's decision to form a joint venture corporation with the departing engineers — rather than hiring them after a cooling-off period or competing independently — suggests that the insider knowledge and owner relationships those engineers possessed were themselves the commercial rationale for the joint venture. By failing to address the firm's complicity, the Board left half of the ethical wrong unexamined and implicitly signaled that private firms may freely absorb revolving-door advantages so long as the departing engineers bear the formal ethical burden alone.
In response to Q103, the Board's silence on the World Bank financing dimension represents a meaningful gap in its analysis. World Bank-financed procurement is governed by the Bank's own procurement guidelines, which impose competitive integrity obligations on both borrowers and consultants that are independent of and in some respects more stringent than domestic professional ethics codes. These guidelines are designed precisely to prevent the kind of insider-advantage procurement that occurred here — where engineers with privileged access to a project's foundational design documents position themselves to capture the execution contract. By failing to acknowledge that the engineers and the joint venture operated within a multilateral lending procurement framework, the Board implicitly treated this as a purely domestic NSPE canon matter. This is analytically incomplete. The World Bank's conflict-of-interest and competitive fairness standards would likely characterize the engineers' conduct as a disqualifying conflict, and the foreign government client's acceptance of the joint venture bid without disclosure of the insider relationship may itself have constituted a procurement integrity violation under the loan agreement. The Board should have noted that NSPE canons represent a floor, not a ceiling, and that engineers practicing in internationally financed projects bear additional obligations that reinforce and extend the ethical duties the Board identified.
In response to Q104, the other competing engineering firms that submitted proposals for the hydroelectric project without access to the preliminary design knowledge or the owner relationships cultivated by the U.S. Agency engineers are cognizable victims of an ethical wrong, not merely incidental bystanders. The principle of fairness in professional competition presupposes that all competitors enter a procurement on a substantially level informational footing. When one competitor possesses foundational design knowledge acquired through a publicly funded role — knowledge that is not available to others through any legitimate competitive channel — the procurement process is structurally compromised regardless of whether the advantaged party wins. The Board acknowledged the appearance of unfair advantage but stopped short of articulating any remedy or disclosure mechanism for the harmed competitors. At minimum, ethical practice would have required the joint venture to disclose the insider relationship to the foreign government client and to all competing firms at the time of proposal submission, enabling the client to make an informed decision about whether to disqualify the joint venture, impose special conditions, or restructure the competition. The absence of such disclosure compounded the original ethical wrong by denying competitors and the client the information necessary to protect the integrity of the procurement.
In response to Q201, the tension between the Engineer Mobility Right and the Revolving Door Integrity Violation principle is not irreconcilable, but it is also not resolved by simply asserting that mobility rights are conditioned on ethical conduct. The real conflict arises because the engineer's most marketable asset after public service on a major infrastructure project is precisely the specialized knowledge and owner relationships that public service generated. A rule that prohibits leveraging that knowledge in post-departure competition effectively imposes a project-specific career penalty on engineers who perform public service well. However, this tension dissolves when the analysis focuses on timing and process rather than on the knowledge itself. The ethical wrong in this case was not that the engineers possessed insider knowledge — they were entitled to carry that expertise into private practice. The wrong was that they negotiated privately while still employed, resigned at the moment of contract conclusion, and structured a joint venture that made their insider knowledge the operative competitive asset without disclosure. A properly conditioned mobility right would permit these engineers to enter private practice, to offer their expertise in hydroelectric design generally, and even to compete for future phases of the same project after a meaningful cooling-off period with full disclosure — but it would not permit them to convert their public-service access into a private contract on the identical project through covert negotiation conducted during their public employment.
In response to Q202, covert negotiation for private employment on the identical project while still employed by a public agency categorically breaches the faithful agent obligation regardless of whether confidential information was actually misused. The deontological basis for this conclusion is that the duty of undivided loyalty is not merely a duty to refrain from disclosing confidential information — it is a duty to ensure that one's judgment, attention, and professional energies are not divided between the employer's interests and one's own private interests during the employment relationship. When an engineer simultaneously holds public authority over a project's foundational design and negotiates privately to profit from that same project's execution, the two roles are structurally incompatible. The engineer cannot simultaneously serve as a faithful agent of the public employer — whose interest is in the best possible preliminary design, independent of who executes it — and as a private entrepreneur whose financial interest lies in securing the execution contract. The argument that exploring private opportunities is a legitimate exercise of professional autonomy is valid in the abstract but fails when the private opportunity is the identical project and the exploration occurs covertly during employment. Professional autonomy does not include the right to exploit one's current employer's project as a private business development opportunity while still drawing that employer's salary.
In response to Q203, the Cloud of Doubt Standard and the Fairness in Professional Competition principle are not in genuine conflict when properly understood, but the Board's application of the Cloud of Doubt Standard does risk an overbroad chilling effect if it is interpreted to mean that any engineer who acquires superior technical knowledge in public service is thereafter disqualified from competing in markets where that knowledge is relevant. The Cloud of Doubt Standard is properly limited to situations where the specific combination of insider project knowledge, owner relationships, and covert pre-departure negotiation creates an appearance of structural unfairness in a specific procurement — not to situations where an engineer simply possesses superior expertise. The distinction is between knowledge-as-credential, which is a legitimate competitive asset, and knowledge-as-insider-access, which is an unfair competitive advantage when converted into a private contract on the identical project through a process that bypasses competitive integrity norms. The Board should have articulated this distinction explicitly to prevent the Cloud of Doubt Standard from being read as a general prohibition on post-government competition by technically expert engineers. Properly bounded, the standard condemns the process by which the advantage was converted into a contract, not the underlying expertise itself.
In response to Q301, from a deontological perspective, the U.S. Agency engineers failed their duty of undivided loyalty to their federal employer by a wide margin. Kantian duty ethics requires that an agent act in accordance with the role-obligations they have voluntarily assumed, and the role of a government engineer entails a categorical commitment to serve the public interest through that employment without simultaneously pursuing private advantage from the same work. The engineers' conduct violated this duty on at least three independent grounds: first, they negotiated privately while still employed, dividing their professional attention and loyalty; second, they formed a corporation to capture private profit from a project whose foundational design they had produced as public servants; and third, they timed their resignations to coincide with contract conclusion, suggesting that their continued public employment was instrumentalized as a means to secure the private contract rather than as an end in itself. A deontological analysis does not require proof that confidential information was misused or that the public employer suffered measurable harm — the breach of the categorical duty of loyalty is complete at the moment the engineer's private interest in the project's execution becomes the operative motive for continued public employment.
In response to Q302, from a consequentialist perspective, the competitive harm to excluded engineering firms and the systemic harm to public procurement integrity outweigh any efficiency benefits derived from awarding the contract to engineers who already possessed specialized project knowledge. The efficiency argument — that engineers familiar with the preliminary design can execute the full design more quickly and at lower cost — has surface plausibility but fails on closer examination for three reasons. First, the efficiency gain is not uniquely achievable through a revolving-door arrangement; it could be captured through a transparent knowledge-transfer process, a structured handoff protocol, or a formally disclosed advisory role that does not require the same engineers to hold the execution contract. Second, the harm to competing firms is not merely financial — it is systemic, because each instance of insider-advantage procurement that goes unchallenged reduces the incentive for firms to invest in building genuine technical capacity, knowing that government-connected insiders can capture contracts regardless of competitive merit. Third, the harm to the public procurement system — particularly in a World Bank-financed context where competitive integrity is a condition of lending — is a long-run cost that dwarfs any short-run efficiency gain from leveraging insider knowledge. A consequentialist calculus that accounts for these systemic effects supports the Board's conclusion that the conduct was ethically impermissible.
In response to Q303, from a virtue ethics perspective, the private consulting engineering firm failed to demonstrate professional integrity when it knowingly structured a joint venture with engineers who had prepared the preliminary plans in a public capacity. Virtue ethics asks not merely whether a rule was violated but whether the actor demonstrated the character traits — honesty, fairness, practical wisdom, and professional integrity — that define an excellent practitioner. A firm of genuine professional integrity, upon learning that the engineers it was recruiting had authored the foundational plans for the very project being procured, would have recognized the structural conflict and either declined the joint venture arrangement, insisted on full disclosure to the client and competing firms before proceeding, or sought independent ethics guidance. Instead, the firm proceeded to incorporate the insider advantage into its competitive bid without apparent hesitation. This conduct reflects not merely a rule violation but a failure of professional character — a willingness to treat competitive advantage as a value that overrides the fairness obligations that define honorable practice. The virtue ethics analysis thus supports a stronger finding against the firm than the Board articulated, because the firm's conduct was not a momentary lapse but a deliberate structural choice to build its competitive position on a foundation of insider access.
In response to Q304, from a deontological perspective, the Board's proposed supplemental rule — prohibiting promotional negotiations for work on a specific project for which an engineer gained specialized knowledge while employed — does represent a categorical moral duty, but its universality is undermined by the Board's failure to address whether the duty applies with equal force when the transition is structured through a joint venture rather than a direct employment relationship. A categorical rule that applies only to engineers who transition independently but not to those who route the same insider advantage through a corporate intermediary is not genuinely categorical — it is a rule with a structural loophole. For the proposed rule to function as a true categorical duty, it must apply regardless of the legal form through which the insider knowledge is converted into a private contract: direct employment, independent consulting, joint venture, or any other arrangement. The deontological force of the rule derives from the nature of the wrong — the conversion of public-service access into private competitive advantage on the identical project — not from the legal structure through which that conversion occurs. The Board should have stated explicitly that the proposed rule applies to all structural arrangements, including joint ventures formed by departing engineers, to prevent the rule from being circumvented through creative corporate structuring.
In response to Q401, full and timely disclosure to both the federal employer and the foreign government client before negotiations were concluded would have materially altered the ethical analysis, though it would not have rendered the conduct entirely permissible. Disclosure would have eliminated the covert negotiation element — the most clearly indefensible aspect of the engineers' conduct — and would have enabled the federal employer to assess whether the engineers' continued participation in the preliminary design work was compromised by their private interest in the execution contract. It would also have enabled the foreign government client to make an informed procurement decision, potentially requiring competitive safeguards or disqualification. However, disclosure alone would not have resolved the underlying structural conflict: engineers who simultaneously hold public authority over a project's foundational design and negotiate privately to execute that same project are in a conflict of interest regardless of whether the conflict is disclosed. Disclosure mitigates the deception element and enables informed consent by affected parties, but it does not eliminate the fairness harm to competing firms who lacked equivalent access. The Board's analysis implies that disclosure was a necessary but not sufficient condition for ethical conduct — the engineers would also have needed to recuse themselves from further public work on the project upon initiating private negotiations.
In response to Q402, if the U.S. Agency engineers had resigned first, observed a meaningful cooling-off period, and only then approached private consulting firms about the hydroelectric project, their subsequent participation in the design and supervision contract would have been substantially more defensible under the NSPE Canons, though not automatically permissible. The cooling-off period would have addressed the covert negotiation problem and the simultaneous-employment conflict, and it would have provided some temporal separation between the public role and the private benefit. However, the ethical permissibility of subsequent participation would still depend on at least three additional conditions: first, whether the cooling-off period was long enough to allow the competitive landscape to reset and for the engineers' insider knowledge to become less determinative of competitive outcomes; second, whether the engineers disclosed their prior role in preparing the preliminary plans to the foreign government client and to competing firms at the time of proposal submission; and third, whether the joint venture structure was designed to leverage insider knowledge as a competitive asset or to offer genuinely independent professional services. The Board's proposed supplemental rule, as described, would likely still prohibit participation on the specific project regardless of the cooling-off period, because the rule focuses on the nature of the specialized knowledge rather than its temporal proximity to the public role. This suggests the Board's proposed rule may be too absolute — a well-designed cooling-off framework with mandatory disclosure could achieve the same procurement integrity goals while preserving a meaningful mobility right.
In response to Q403, if the private consulting engineering firm had declined to include the former U.S. Agency engineers in its joint venture and competed for the hydroelectric contract solely on the basis of its own qualifications, the ethical analysis would have been substantially cleaner for the firm, though the engineers' individual conduct would remain problematic. The firm's independent competition would have eliminated the private firm complicity concern and the incumbent advantage exploitation issue. However, the ethical analysis of the departing engineers would not have changed: their covert negotiation while employed, their strategic resignation timing, and their attempt to convert public-service access into private competitive advantage would all remain ethically impermissible regardless of whether the firm ultimately included them. This counterfactual also illuminates the firm's independent ethical agency — it had a genuine choice about whether to incorporate insider advantage into its competitive strategy, and its decision to proceed with the joint venture reflects a deliberate choice to prioritize competitive positioning over procurement integrity. The counterfactual thus supports the conclusion that the firm was not merely a passive beneficiary of the engineers' conduct but an active co-architect of the ethical wrong.
In response to Q404, the Board's analysis implies a substantially uniform ethical standard regardless of the funding source, and this implication is correct as a matter of NSPE canon ethics but incomplete as a matter of the full normative framework applicable to the engineers' conduct. The NSPE canons' prohibitions on covert negotiation while employed, exploitation of insider knowledge, and conduct that creates a cloud of doubt over competitive fairness apply with equal force whether a project is domestically financed, internationally financed, or funded by a multilateral lender. The ethical wrong is not contingent on who is paying for the project. However, the World Bank financing dimension does add a layer of obligation that the Board's uniform-standard approach fails to capture: multilateral lending institutions impose procurement integrity conditions as a matter of loan covenant, and engineers who participate in World Bank-financed procurement are on constructive notice of those conditions. The practical consequence is that the engineers' conduct in this case was not merely an NSPE canon violation — it was potentially a violation of the procurement integrity conditions attached to the World Bank loan, which could have consequences for the foreign government borrower and for the engineers' eligibility to participate in future multilateral-financed projects. A complete ethical analysis would have acknowledged both the uniform NSPE standard and the additional obligations arising from the multilateral financing context.
The central principle tension in this case — between the Engineer Mobility Right affirmed by NSPE Policy 52 and the Pre-Departure Promotional Negotiation Prohibition — was never fully resolved by the Board; instead, the Board sidestepped resolution by invoking the Cloud of Doubt Standard as a surrogate condemnation. This evasion is analytically significant: it reveals that the Board implicitly treated the appearance of unfair insider advantage as independently sufficient to establish an ethical violation, without committing to a clear hierarchy between mobility and integrity principles. The practical effect is that the Faithful Agent Obligation and the Post-Public-Service Conflict Avoidance principle were given de facto priority over the Mobility Right, but only sub silentio — the Board never articulated why loyalty and conflict-avoidance should trump mobility when no formal revolving-door prohibition existed and no confidential information misuse was proven. This unresolved tension leaves engineers without fair notice of precisely when career planning shades into prohibited promotional negotiation, which is the core deficiency the Board's proposed supplemental rule was meant — but failed — to cure.
This case teaches that when multiple integrity-protecting principles converge on the same conduct — the Loyal Agent Obligation, the Active-Employment Private Contract Negotiation Prohibition, the Public Agency Work Product Non-Exploitation Principle, and the Fairness in Professional Competition principle — their cumulative weight can establish an ethical violation even where no single principle, as then codified, is independently breached. The Board's conclusion that the engineers violated the 'spirit' of the Canons is best understood as a recognition that these principles form a coherent normative cluster: each principle individually addresses one dimension of the conflict-of-interest problem (loyalty, timing, knowledge exploitation, and competitive fairness respectively), and their simultaneous activation by the same course of conduct — negotiating privately while employed, forming a corporation, and immediately contracting on the identical project — produces an ethical judgment that transcends any single rule's literal scope. This cluster-violation reasoning is a legitimate and important mode of ethical analysis, but it imposes a corresponding obligation on the Board to articulate the cluster explicitly rather than retreating to the vague language of 'spirit,' which provides insufficient guidance for future cases.
The Board's analysis reveals a structural asymmetry in how it applied competing principles: the Revolving Door Integrity Violation and the Incumbent Advantage Prohibition were applied rigorously to the departing U.S. Agency engineers, while the Private Firm Complicity Prohibition and the Fairness in Professional Competition principle — which bear equally on the private consulting engineering firm that knowingly structured the joint venture — were effectively set aside without explanation. This asymmetry is ethically indefensible. The Procurement Integrity in Public Engineering principle, particularly as reinforced by the World Bank financing context, applies to all participants in a procurement, not merely to the engineers whose insider knowledge was being monetized. By declining to address the consulting firm's complicity, the Board implicitly endorsed a principle hierarchy in which the obligations of the knowledge-holder are paramount while the obligations of the knowledge-exploiter are treated as secondary or derivative. A more coherent synthesis would recognize that the Section 19 Collective Reputation Protection principle — which the Board invoked to condemn the appearance of impropriety — applies with equal force to the consulting firm, whose knowing participation in the joint venture structure was an independent ethical wrong that compounded rather than merely facilitated the engineers' violation.
Conflict of Interest Situation Crystallized
A legally and ethically significant conflict of interest now exists as an objective fact; engineers' ability to serve the public interest impartially on this project is compromised; agency oversight mechanisms should have been triggered.
During negotiation phase, while engineers remain U.S. Agency employees
The moment the engineers began negotiating with private consulting firms while still employed by the U.S. Agency, a concrete conflict of interest came into existence as an objective condition, regardless of the engineers' subjective intent. Their simultaneous roles as public servants and prospective private contractors on the same project created an irreconcilable dual loyalty.
Professional engineering ethics consensus
At or about the time the negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, this group of engineers resigned their positions with the U.S. Agency and shortly thereafter entered into contract with the foreign government
NSPE BER in assessing the timing of the engineers' resignation and contract execution
Provides the standard against which the engineers' immediate transition — resigning and entering contract with the foreign government nearly simultaneously — is evaluated; the absence of any waiting period is central to the ethical analysis
Should the U.S. Agency engineers refrain from concluding binding private contracts and forming a joint venture corporation for the hydroelectric project while still employed by the public agency, or may they finalize those arrangements during active employment and resign at the moment of contract conclusion?
U.S. Agency engineers employed by a federal government agency responsible for the basic plans of a hydroelectric project negotiated with private consulting firms, formed a joint venture corporation, and concluded binding private contracts for the design and supervision of that same project — all while still drawing a government salary and holding active insider access to the project's foundational plans. Their resignations were timed to coincide with contract conclusion rather than preceding private negotiations.
Refrain from concluding any binding private contracts, joint venture agreements, or corporate formations related to the hydroelectric project while still employed; resign first and disclose the prior public role to the client and competing firms before entering private negotiations.
Conclude the joint venture agreement and private contract negotiations while still employed, then resign at the moment of contract finalization, treating the mobility right as permitting career transitions that are completed before the employment relationship formally ends.
Continue private negotiations while employed but immediately disclose their existence to the federal employer and request formal conflict-of-interest guidance or recusal from further public work on the project, treating disclosure as a curative measure that preserves both the mobility right and the loyalty obligation.
Should the U.S. Agency engineers refrain from competing for the hydroelectric design contract by leveraging insider knowledge and owner relationships acquired in their public capacity, or may they deploy those advantages as legitimate professional credentials in the private procurement?
The U.S. Agency engineers possessed insider knowledge of the hydroelectric project's publicly-funded basic plans, personal relationships with the foreign government agency's representatives, and access to foundational design work product — all acquired in their public capacity. After forming a joint venture with a private consulting firm, they competed for and were awarded the design and supervision contract on the same project, leveraging those advantages in a procurement where other firms lacked equivalent access.
Resign from public employment, observe a meaningful cooling-off period calibrated to the significance of their public role, and only then compete for the hydroelectric contract — disclosing their prior role in preparing the basic plans to the foreign government client and all competing firms at the time of proposal submission.
Treat the specialized knowledge and owner relationships acquired in public service as legitimate professional credentials that may be deployed immediately in private procurement, on the basis that the mobility right permits engineers to compete in markets where their superior technical knowledge is relevant regardless of how it was acquired.
Compete for the hydroelectric contract immediately after resignation but disclose the prior public role and insider knowledge to the client and competing firms, treating transparency as a sufficient safeguard that preserves competitive integrity without imposing a career-penalizing cooling-off period.
Should the private consulting engineering firm decline to enter a joint venture with the U.S. Agency engineers given that their competitive positioning was structurally dependent on insider knowledge and owner relationships acquired in their public capacity, or may the firm proceed with the joint venture on the basis that the engineers' expertise constitutes a legitimate professional qualification?
A private consulting engineering firm actively negotiated with at least two groups of U.S. Agency engineers who had prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project while still employed by the public agency. The firm selected one group, formed a joint venture corporation with them, and incorporated their insider knowledge of the publicly-funded basic plans and personal relationships with the project owner as a structural feature of its competitive bid — knowingly building its competitive positioning on revolving-door advantage rather than independent professional merit.
Decline to form a joint venture with the U.S. Agency engineers on the basis that their competitive positioning is structurally dependent on insider knowledge and owner relationships acquired in their public capacity on the identical project, and compete for the hydroelectric contract solely on the basis of the firm's own independent qualifications.
Proceed with the joint venture but require the engineers to fully disclose their prior public role and insider knowledge to the foreign government client and all competing firms before proposal submission, treating mandatory disclosure as a sufficient safeguard that preserves competitive integrity while allowing the firm to benefit from the engineers' genuine technical expertise.
Proceed with the joint venture on the basis that the engineers' specialized knowledge of hydroelectric design constitutes a legitimate professional qualification that the firm is entitled to incorporate into its competitive bid, treating the firm's independent obligation as limited to ensuring it does not itself misrepresent qualifications or use confidential information.
Should the joint venture formed by the U.S. Agency engineers and the private consulting firm disclose the engineers' prior public role and insider knowledge to the foreign government client and all competing firms before submitting a proposal, or may the joint venture treat that insider advantage as a proprietary competitive asset requiring no disclosure?
The competing engineering firms that submitted proposals for the hydroelectric project lacked access to the preliminary design knowledge and owner relationships cultivated by the U.S. Agency engineers through their public employment. The joint venture's structural informational advantage — derived from publicly-funded work product and personal acquaintance with the project owner — was not disclosed to the foreign government client or to competing firms at the time of proposal submission, denying them the information necessary to assess or challenge the procurement's integrity.
Before submitting a proposal, disclose the engineers' prior public role in preparing the basic plans and the nature of their insider knowledge and owner relationships to the foreign government client and to all competing firms, enabling the client to make an informed procurement decision and allowing competitors to assess whether to challenge the joint venture's participation.
Disclose the engineers' prior public role to the foreign government client as the procuring authority — who bears ultimate responsibility for procurement integrity — without separately notifying competing firms, on the basis that the disclosure obligation runs to the client alone and that the client may then decide whether to restructure the competition.
Treat the engineers' specialized knowledge and owner relationships as proprietary professional credentials that require no disclosure beyond standard qualifications statements, on the basis that all competitors are free to develop equivalent expertise and relationships through their own professional efforts and that the procurement system does not require leveling of informational advantages.
Joint Venture (U.S. Agency Engineers and Private Consulting Firm)
Should the Board's proposed supplemental rule define the ethical threshold as the moment project-specific insider knowledge becomes the operative basis for private negotiation — with a defined cooling-off period and mandatory disclosure as conditions for subsequent permissible participation — or should the rule impose a categorical bar on same-project competition for any engineer who gained specialized knowledge in public service on that project?
The Board proposed a supplemental rule prohibiting engineers from engaging in promotional negotiations for work on a specific project for which they gained specialized knowledge while employed by a public agency. The rule must define the threshold between permissible exploratory career planning and prohibited promotional negotiation, address whether a cooling-off period followed by full disclosure would render subsequent participation permissible, and specify whether the prohibition applies equally to direct employment transitions and joint venture structures — without chilling legitimate post-government engineering careers.
Anchor the prohibition to the moment project-specific insider knowledge becomes the operative basis for private negotiation; require mandatory disclosure to the public employer upon commencement of any such negotiation; and establish a presumptive cooling-off period after resignation — calibrated to the significance of the engineer's public role — after which competitive participation is permissible subject to full disclosure to the client and all competing firms.
Adopt a categorical rule prohibiting any engineer who gained specialized knowledge in public service on a specific project from subsequently competing for any private contract on that same project, regardless of the time elapsed since resignation, the legal structure of the private arrangement, or the extent of disclosure — treating the nature of the insider knowledge as permanently disqualifying for that project.
Decline to adopt a specific supplemental rule and instead apply the existing spirit-of-the-Canons standard on a case-by-case basis, evaluating whether the totality of circumstances — timing, disclosure, degree of insider advantage, and competitive harm — creates a cloud of doubt sufficient to establish an ethical violation without imposing a categorical prohibition that risks chilling legitimate post-government careers.
{'license': 'Professional Engineer (implied)', 'prior_role': 'Preliminary design team members', 'advantages': 'Intimate project knowledge, owner representative relationships', 'conduct_status': 'Not established that unfair use occurred, but cloud of doubt raised'}
Engineers who performed preliminary design work on the project, gained intimate technical knowledge and personal acquaintance with the owner's representatives, then departed their employer and used those advantages to compete for and secure the full design contract, raising questions under NSPE Canon 19 about whether those advantages were used fairly.
{'type': 'client', 'target': 'Project Owner'}
{'type': 'competitor', 'target': 'Other Competing Firms'}
{'type': 'former_employer', 'target': 'Original Engineering Firm'}
Preliminary Design Insider Competing Engineer
the personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project
the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages
the basic right of an American citizen to resign from one position and accept another or initiate a business of his own
Dual Public-Private Employment Ethics Standard
Several engineers in the employ of the U.S. Agency responsible for the basic plans negotiated with at least two engineering firms with the intent of taking part in the design and supervision of the work
Negotiations were finally concluded between this group and a firm of consulting engineers for a cooperative project to execute the work, and the group of employees formed a corporation
NSPE BER in evaluating the engineers' conduct during the negotiation phase prior to resignation
Applies to the period during which the engineers were still employed by the U.S. Agency while simultaneously negotiating private contracts related to the same project, creating a direct conflict between their public duties and private interests
Engineer Confidentiality and Loyalty Obligation Standard
Engineers employed by the U.S. Agency; NSPE BER in analysis
Establishes the duty of the U.S. Agency engineers to maintain loyalty to their public employer and not exploit confidential project knowledge — including the basic plans and project report — for private competitive advantage during or after their employment
Engineers Gain Insider Project Knowledge
Engineers now possess privileged project information unavailable to competing consulting firms, creating an information asymmetry that persists beyond their government employment and confers competitive advantage in any subsequent private bidding.
During basic plan preparation phase, while engineers are U.S. Agency employees
As a direct result of preparing the basic plans for the hydroelectric project in their official capacity, the U.S. Agency engineers acquire privileged, non-public knowledge about the project's technical requirements, scope, budget parameters, and procurement structure. This knowledge asymmetry is an outcome of their government role.
Engineers Gain Insider Project Knowledge (Event 2) → Pursue Private Consulting Opportunity (Action 1)
As a direct result of preparing the basic plans for the hydroelectric project in their official capacity, engineers acquired insider knowledge that enabled and motivated the pursuit of private consulting opportunities
Engineers Gain Insider Project Knowledge (Event 2)
Without the insider project knowledge gained through official duties, engineers would have had no meaningful advantage over external consultants and the private consulting opportunity would likely not have been pursued or awarded
Pursue Private Consulting Opportunity (Action 1)
Access to non-public technical and procurement information
Existence of a private market for that specialized expertise
Official assignment to hydroelectric project preparation
Recognition of commercial value of insider knowledge
Combination of insider knowledge + commercial opportunity + engineers' volitional decision to exploit that knowledge privately
now private contractors via newly formed corporation and joint venture
Completion of the transition raises retrospective questions about whether the entire sequence, from insider knowledge acquisition through contract execution, constituted an unfair exploitation of public employment
Possibility that competitors were unfairly excluded from an equivalent opportunity due to the engineers' insider advantages
Potential misrepresentation to the foreign government of the nature and exclusivity of the engineers' insider knowledge
Risk that the contract price may have been set at a level that only the insider group could sustain, foreclosing fair competition
Formal compliance with the procedural requirement of resigning before executing the private contract
Legal right to enter into a private consulting contract after resignation from public employment
Accountability in World Bank-financed project procurement
Avoidance of misrepresentation regarding the basis of competitive advantage
Canon 19 protection of the engineering profession's collective integrity
Fair competition in the engineering marketplace
Transparency and full disclosure to clients and project owners
Execute the consulting contract to design and supervise construction of the hydroelectric project, realizing the financial and professional benefits sought throughout the preceding negotiation and transition process
Hydroelectric project engineering design and construction supervision
International consulting contract management
Joint venture coordination and corporate governance
World Bank project compliance and reporting
Post-resignation; shortly after resignation from the U.S. Agency
Canon 19: obligation to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and misunderstanding, the contract execution without full disclosure creates a 'cloud of doubt' (per the Discussion) over the integrity of the enterprise
Duty to avoid conduct that could constitute unfair competition against other consulting firms
Duty to avoid misrepresentation to the project owner regarding the nature and source of their competitive advantages
Obligation to World Bank financing accountability standards requiring transparent and fair procurement
Obligation to ensure fair competition by disclosing to the foreign government and World Bank the full circumstances of the engineers' prior public role and the insider advantages it conferred
Shortly after resigning from the U.S. Agency, the engineers formally entered into contract with the foreign government as part of the joint venture, completing their transition from public employees to private contractors on the identical project they had designed in their public capacity. This action consummated the entire sequence of decisions made while still publicly employed.
Enter Contract With Foreign Government (Action 5) → Competitive Procurement Integrity Undermined (Event 6)
As an automatic consequence of the engineers' insider advantage and pre-arranged joint venture, the competitive procurement process was structurally undermined, the contract execution with the foreign government was the final act that converted the ethical violation into a concrete procurement harm
Enter Contract With Foreign Government (Action 5)
If any single link in the causal chain had been broken: engineers recused from private work, no pre-arranged joint venture, post-employment cooling-off period enforced, or foreign government disqualifying the bid, competitive procurement integrity would have been preserved or substantially restored
Competitive Procurement Integrity Undermined (Event 6)
Absence of effective oversight by U.S. Agency, foreign government, or World Bank
Engineers' possession of non-public project information unavailable to competing firms
Foreign government's execution of contract without remedying the procurement integrity deficit
Pre-arranged joint venture concluded before open competition could occur
U.S. Agency Engineers (primary); Consulting Firm (secondary); Foreign Government (tertiary); U.S. Agency as institution (indirect)
Insider knowledge advantage + pre-arranged contract vehicle + formal contract execution = sufficient to constitute a complete undermining of competitive procurement integrity, regardless of whether the joint venture's technical work was ultimately competent
The nature and far-reaching implications of the case made definitive decision-making difficult; the Board could not convene or examine witnesses, constraining its adjudicative capacity
Ethics Board Evidentiary Limitation Procedural Constraint
The Board was procedurally constrained in its ability to reach definitive factual findings because it was not possible for the Board to meet and discuss the case, and it could not bring in witnesses for explanation or cross-examination — limiting the Board to analysis based on documentary evidence and requiring it to acknowledge that a pinpoint decision was difficult if not impossible to achieve.
NSPE Board of Ethical Review procedural limitations; evidentiary constraints of the case
The evidence in this case is of such a nature and the implications so far reaching, that a pinpoint decision is difficult if not impossible to achieve.
During the Board's ethical review of the hydroelectric project procurement case
It was not possible for the Board to meet and discuss the case and it could not bring in the witnesses for explanation or cross-examination.
Federal Government employees, project designers
Formal corporate existence while still employed by the U.S. Agency creates a concrete, documented conflict of interest
Incorporation signals irreversible commitment to the private venture before resignation, further blurring the line between public duty and private interest
The timing of incorporation relative to contract conclusion could be perceived as strategic manipulation of the transition to minimize regulatory scrutiny
Exercise of legal right to form a business entity under U.S. law
Protection of public trust in government-employed engineers
Transparency and full disclosure to current employer
Establish a formal legal and corporate structure to participate in the joint venture, protect personal liability, and position the group to enter into contract with the foreign government as a recognized business entity
Canon 19: obligation to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and misunderstanding by avoiding conduct that casts doubt on professional integrity
Business and corporate law knowledge sufficient to structure a joint venture entity
Engineering project management and design expertise to define the corporation's scope of services
Understanding of international consulting contract requirements
Late stage; at or about the time negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, prior to or concurrent with resignation
Duty to avoid conflicts of interest during active public employment: corporate formation constitutes a concrete, formal conflict
Duty to disclose conflicts of interest to current employer
Obligation of undivided loyalty to the U.S. Agency as current employer
Obligation to ensure that the transition from public to private employment does not exploit publicly funded work product
The group of engineers formally incorporated a new legal entity to serve as their vehicle for participation in the joint venture with the selected consulting engineering firm. This corporate formation occurred while negotiations with the foreign government were still being concluded and the engineers remained nominally employed by the U.S. Agency.
Form Corporation for Joint Venture (Action 3) → Joint Venture Agreement Concluded (Event 4)
The group of engineers formally incorporated a new legal entity to serve as their vehicle for participation, which was a necessary structural prerequisite for concluding the joint venture agreement with the consulting firm
Form Corporation for Joint Venture (Action 3)
Without formal incorporation, engineers could not have entered into a legally binding joint venture agreement as a recognized contracting entity; the agreement would not have been concluded in its operative form
Joint Venture Agreement Concluded (Event 4)
Engineers' collective commitment to proceed as a unified group
Formal legal incorporation of a new entity
Legal framework permitting such joint ventures in the relevant jurisdiction
Successful prior negotiations with consulting firm (Action 2)
U.S. Agency Engineers (as a group) and Consulting Firm (shared)
Incorporation + concluded negotiations + consulting firm agreement = sufficient to produce a binding joint venture arrangement
Professional engineering ethics consensus and government policy
Government Agency Confidential Information Access Policy
The basic plans for the project were prepared by an agency of the Federal Government of the United States
Several engineers in the employ of the U.S. Agency responsible for the basic plans negotiated with at least two engineering firms
Engineers formerly employed by the U.S. Agency; NSPE BER in analysis
Governs the engineers' obligations regarding the basic plans and project report prepared by the U.S. Agency, which the engineers had privileged access to and which formed the foundation of the private contract they sought
Government-Designed Project Private Execution Transition — Discussion Phase
Continues from prior sections through the Board's discussion and opinion
Government-Designed Project Private Execution Transition State
Engineers who prepared preliminary design in public capacity and then contracted privately to execute the same project
Resignation from public agency followed by immediate private contract for execution of the same project
Government Contract Awarded To Joint Venture
Private financial benefit has been fully realized from public-service insider advantage; the ethical harm is now complete and irreversible without contract rescission; the engineers are no longer federal employees but the consequences of their prior conduct persist.
At or near the time of the engineers' resignations from U.S. Agency
The foreign government finalized a contract with the joint venture entity formed by the former U.S. Agency engineers and their consulting firm partner. This outcome represents the culmination of the insider advantage pipeline: public-service knowledge converted into private competitive advantage converted into a government contract award.
A publicly financed international infrastructure project is created, placing U.S. Agency engineers in positions of public trust with access to privileged project information.
Project inception, prior to engineer involvement
A foreign government's hydroelectric project is established with partial World Bank financing, creating the institutional context within which U.S. Agency engineers become involved. This exogenous event sets the conditions for all subsequent actions and conflicts.
The Board could not meet in person, call witnesses, or conduct cross-examination, and the evidence did not establish that the engineers had actually used their insider advantages unfairly through any of the enumerated mechanisms
Insider Advantage Unfair Use Epistemic Verification Constraint
The Board was constrained from finding an actual ethics violation based on unfair use of insider competitive advantages because it had not established that any of the specific unfair use mechanisms — information withholding, misrepresentation of insider knowledge value, or artificially low fee submission — actually occurred, limiting the Board's finding to the cloud-of-doubt concern under Section 19 rather than a confirmed violation of other code provisions.
NSPE Code of Ethics; NSPE Board of Ethical Review adjudicative standards
It has not been established that any of these things occurred.
At the time of the Board's ethical review of the hydroelectric project procurement
However, they might have been used and in any case the possibility of the existence of one or more of these facets raises a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise.
A private business entity with a direct financial interest in the project now exists; the engineers' private and public roles are now formally and irrevocably entangled; the competitive procurement process has been structurally compromised.
After negotiations concluded, while engineers may still be employed by U.S. Agency
Negotiations between the engineers and a consulting firm reached a successful conclusion, resulting in a joint venture agreement. This outcome converted the engineers' insider advantage and negotiating efforts into a concrete, legally binding private business arrangement.
National Society of Professional Engineers
NSPE Canons of Ethics — Section 19: Protection of the Engineering Profession from Misrepresentation
It becomes a matter which might be considered under Section 19 of the Canons, which states: 'The engineer will endeavor to protect the engineering profession collectively and individually from misrepresentation and misunderstanding.'
Board of Ethical Review in assessing whether the engineers' competitive conduct raised ethical concerns about misrepresentation
Invoked as the ethical provision under which the engineers' conduct — potentially exploiting insider knowledge or misrepresenting the value of that knowledge to gain competitive advantage — could be evaluated.
NSPE Board of Ethical Review in evaluating the engineers' conduct
Primary normative authority governing whether the engineers' conduct — negotiating private contracts while still employed by the U.S. Agency and leveraging government-prepared plans — violated professional ethics obligations
U.S. Agency engineers who prepared preliminary design of a hydroelectric project resigned and immediately formed a joint venture to compete for the full design contract, leveraging insider project knowledge and personal acquaintance with owner representatives
At-Will Employment Symmetry Competitive Mobility Permissibility Constraint
The U.S. Agency engineers had the fundamental right under NSPE Policy No. 52 to resign and enter private practice, but that right was conditioned on compliance with the Canons of Ethics — meaning they could not leverage insider project knowledge and owner relationships gained during public employment as competitive instruments in pursuing the hydroelectric project design contract.
NSPE Professional Policy No. 52; NSPE Code of Ethics Canons
There can be no question of the basic right of an American citizen to resign from one position and accept another or initiate a business of his own.
From the point of resignation through the competitive procurement for the hydroelectric project design contract
NSPE has formally recognized that right in Professional Policy No. 52 which says: 'It is the stated policy of the Society that an individual professional engineer has the right to seek and accept other employment in his field, provided the seeking and acceptance of such other employment is consistent with the Canons of Ethics as it pertains to relations with clients and employers.'
NSPE Policy No. 52 Professional Mobility Right Active
From the point of resignation through the private contract award and execution
There can be no question of the basic right of an American citizen to resign from one position and accept another or initiate a business of his own
Engineers who resigned from public agency and formed private firm to execute the same project
Not terminated within the scope of this discussion; the right is affirmed as ongoing
NSPE has formally recognized that right in Professional Policy No. 52
Engineers' resignation from public-sector position and initiation of private practice
Negotiate With Consulting Firms While Employed
Direct conflict of interest between their duties as U.S. Agency employees and their private commercial negotiations
Disadvantage to consulting firms not approached, who lacked the opportunity to partner with the insider group
Potential use of non-public project information to inform or advantage their negotiating position with consulting firms
Risk that negotiations with multiple firms could involve disclosure of sensitive project data
Partial exercise of right to seek new employment (NSPE Professional Policy No. 52), though the manner of exercise is ethically compromised
Protection of publicly funded project integrity
Identify the most advantageous private-sector partner and negotiate favorable terms for a joint venture to execute the hydroelectric project design and construction supervision
Canon 19: obligation to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and misunderstanding
Business negotiation and joint venture structuring
Hydroelectric engineering design and supervision expertise
Knowledge of consulting engineering market and firm capabilities
Understanding of international project procurement processes
Mid stage; during active employment with the U.S. Agency, prior to resignation
Duty of undivided loyalty to the U.S. Agency as current employer during the negotiation period
Duty to ensure fair and open competition in the consulting market (competing firms were excluded from equivalent access)
Obligation to avoid conflicts of interest between public duties and private negotiations
Prohibition on using publicly acquired project information for private commercial gain while still a public employee
While still employed by the U.S. Agency, the engineers initiated and conducted negotiations with at least two consulting engineering firms with the explicit intent of securing a role in the design and supervision of the hydroelectric project. These negotiations occurred concurrently with their ongoing public employment responsibilities.
Negotiate With Consulting Firms While Employed (Action 2) → Conflict of Interest Situation Crystallized (Event 3)
The moment the engineers began negotiating with private consulting firms while still employed by the U.S. Agency, the conflict of interest situation crystallized into an active ethical and legal violation
Negotiate With Consulting Firms While Employed (Action 2)
If engineers had resigned before initiating negotiations, or had disclosed negotiations and recused themselves from official project duties, the conflict would not have crystallized in the same legally and ethically acute form
Conflict of Interest Situation Crystallized (Event 3)
Active negotiation with firms seeking to benefit from the same project engineers were officially managing
Continued employment at U.S. Agency during negotiations
Existence of a fiduciary duty to the U.S. Agency and public interest
Non-disclosure of negotiations to the employing agency
Simultaneous employment + private negotiation on the same project = sufficient to constitute a crystallized conflict of interest regardless of outcome
Procurement Fairness Appearance Management Capability
Other competing engineering firms were structurally disadvantaged by the insider advantage of the joint venture, and the procurement fairness appearance management capability was relevant to their assessment of whether the procurement process was structured to withstand scrutiny for competitive fairness
Other engineering firms who may have considered offering services for the full design contract were at a structural disadvantage relative to the insider-knowledge joint venture
The structural disadvantage faced by other firms who lacked insider knowledge of the hydroelectric project and personal acquaintance with the owner's representatives
It seems axiomatic that the personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project and the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms who may have considered the offering of their services to the owner.
Competitive Procurement Fairness Assessment Capability
Other competing engineering firms were required to assess whether the procurement process for the hydroelectric project was being conducted fairly — recognizing that the joint venture between the private firm and former U.S. Agency engineers created a structural competitive disadvantage for all other firms.
Other engineering firms who may have considered offering services for the full design contract were structurally disadvantaged relative to the insider-advantage joint venture.
Structural disadvantage: Other firms competed without access to the insider knowledge, personal relationships, and publicly-funded basic plans that the joint venture exploited.
An agency of a foreign government invited proposals from consulting engineering firms to complete the design and supervise the construction of a hydroelectric project
Engineers had privileged access to the basic plans and project report prepared by the U.S. Agency during their public employment; the question was whether this information was exploited in their private competitive engagement
Post-Employment Confidential Information Non-Exploitation Constraint
The U.S. Agency engineers were constrained from exploiting confidential technical information, project parameters, and insider knowledge acquired during their public employment — including the basic plans and project report prepared by the U.S. Agency — to benefit their private joint venture in the competitive procurement for the hydroelectric project design contract.
NSPE Code of Ethics Section III.4; Post-Employment Confidential Information Non-Exploitation Constraint
Following resignation from the U.S. Agency through the competitive procurement and execution of the hydroelectric project design contract
This could have been accomplished by withholding certain information from the competitors, by misrepresentation to the owner of the importance of their inside information
Competitor Firm Incumbent Information Advantage Non-Exploitation Organizational Capability
The private consulting engineering firm was required to recognize and refrain from exploiting the competitive advantage created by its joint venture partners' prior access to the publicly-funded basic plans, project parameters, and personal relationships with the foreign government client's representatives.
Private firm's joint venture arrangement with former U.S. Agency engineers gave it access to insider knowledge and relationships that other competing firms lacked.
Failure: The private firm structured its joint venture to exploit precisely this insider advantage, gaining a structural competitive benefit over other firms.
Private Consulting Engineering Firm Joint Venture Partner
Negotiations were finally concluded between this group and a firm of consulting engineers for a cooperative project to execute the work, and the group of employees formed a corporation to be a part of a joint venture to design the hydroelectric project.
Insider Competitive Advantage Unfair-Use Mechanism Identification Capability
The private consulting engineering firm was required to identify the specific mechanisms through which the joint venture's insider knowledge could be used unfairly — including information withholding, owner misrepresentation, and artificially low fee proposals — and to refrain from structuring the joint venture arrangement to exploit any of these mechanisms
Private firm entered joint venture with former government engineers possessing insider knowledge, creating risk that the joint venture would exploit unfair competitive advantage mechanisms
The firm's entry into a cooperative arrangement with former U.S. Agency engineers who possessed insider knowledge of the hydroelectric project
This could have been accomplished by withholding certain information from the competitors, by misrepresentation to the owner of the importance of their inside information, or by quoting a price which was lower than could be considered proper for the securing of data for and the design of the project.
International Engineering Procurement Competitive Integrity Capability
The private consulting engineering firm was required to pursue the hydroelectric project design contract through merit-based, competitive, and transparent means — not through a joint venture arrangement premised on its partners' insider government knowledge and personal relationships with the project owner.
Private firm competed for a World Bank-financed foreign government project through a joint venture arrangement that exploited insider government knowledge.
Failure: The private firm structured its competitive approach around the insider advantage of its joint venture partners rather than independent technical merit.
An agency of a foreign government invited proposals from consulting engineering firms to complete the design and supervise the construction of a hydroelectric project which is being financed in part by a World Bank loan.
Negotiations were finally concluded between this group and a firm of consulting engineers for a cooperative project to execute the work
Multilateral Lender Procurement Integrity Awareness Capability
The private consulting engineering firm was required to recognize that the World Bank financing of the project created procurement integrity obligations extending to all competing firms — including the obligation to compete through merit-based processes consistent with multilateral lender standards.
Project financed in part by World Bank loan, creating multilateral lender procurement integrity obligations applicable to all competing firms.
Failure: The private firm did not account for World Bank procurement integrity requirements in structuring its joint venture competitive approach.
Section 19 Collective Profession Reputation Protection Self-Application Capability
The private consulting engineering firm was required to apply Section 19 of the NSPE Canons to its own joint venture conduct, recognizing that knowingly entering an arrangement that raised a cloud of doubt about procurement purity implicated the collective reputation protection obligation
Private firm's participation in the joint venture arrangement implicated Section 19 collective reputation protection obligations alongside the departing engineers
The BER's application of Section 19 to both the departing engineers and their private firm joint venture partner
The joint venture's competitive engagement raised a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise under Section 19, with specific concern about whether insider advantages were used through information withholding, misrepresentation, or artificially low fee submission
U.S. Agency Engineers and Private Consulting Firm Joint Venture
Procurement Competition Honorable Conduct Constraint
The U.S. Agency engineers and their private consulting firm joint venture partner were constrained to conduct all competitive activities for the hydroelectric project design contract honorably, responsibly, and fairly — prohibiting the use of insider relationships with owner representatives, withholding of information from competitors, misrepresentation of the importance of insider knowledge, or submission of an artificially low fee as competitive instruments.
NSPE Code of Ethics Sections II.5, III.6, III.7; Section 19 NSPE Canons
The crucial question is, therefore, 'Were these advantages used unfairly?'
Throughout the competitive procurement for the hydroelectric project design contract
the possibility of the existence of one or more of these facets raises a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise
{'relationship_to_engineers': 'Recipient of preliminary design services; subsequent client for full design', 'potential_harm': "May have been misled about the uniqueness or necessity of insider engineers' knowledge"}
The owner of the project whose representatives had personal acquaintance with the departing engineers from the preliminary design phase, and who subsequently engaged those engineers for the full design contract — potentially subject to misrepresentation about the importance of the engineers' insider knowledge.
{'type': 'client', 'target': 'Departing Preliminary Design Employees'}
{'type': 'prior_service_recipient', 'target': 'Original Engineering Firm'}
the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project
by misrepresentation to the owner of the importance of their inside information
Public Official Conflict of Interest Standard
the group of employees formed a corporation to be a part of a joint venture to design the hydroelectric project
Governs the obligation of the U.S. Agency engineers to avoid exploiting their public position — including access to the basic plans and project report — for private gain by negotiating private contracts while still employed
Creation of an inherent conflict of interest during remaining period of public employment
Possible appearance of impropriety or misuse of publicly funded work product
Potential disadvantage to competing consulting firms lacking equivalent insider access
Risk of casting doubt on the integrity of the U.S. Agency's preliminary design work
Exercised legal right of an American citizen to seek new employment (NSPE Professional Policy No. 52)
Individual right to career advancement and professional self-determination
Integrity of publicly funded project development processes
Secure a lucrative private consulting contract on the hydroelectric project by capitalizing on intimate project knowledge and established relationships with foreign government representatives
Duty to ensure fair competition by not exploiting privileged access to project data for private commercial advantage
Obligation to avoid conflicts of interest arising from simultaneous pursuit of private gain on publicly funded work
Obligation to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and misunderstanding (Canon 19)
Familiarity with World Bank-financed project requirements
Knowledge of project-specific technical data and specifications
Understanding of international consulting procurement processes
Early stage; while still employed by the U.S. Agency, prior to any negotiations
Duty of undivided loyalty to current employer (U.S. Agency) while still employed
U.S. Agency engineers made a deliberate decision to leverage their insider knowledge and project familiarity gained through public employment to pursue private consulting opportunities on the same hydroelectric project they helped design. This represented an intentional pivot from public service to private commercial interest on the identical project.
S. Government, while still employed, to organize a new private company and negotiate a contract to take part in the design of a project for which they had prepared preliminary plans as employees of the Government?
At what precise moment did the engineers' conduct cross from permissible career planning into ethically prohibited promotional negotiation — and does the Board's proposed rule adequately define that threshold in a way that gives engineers fair notice?
What ethical obligations, if any, did the private consulting engineering firm bear when it knowingly structured a joint venture with engineers who had prepared the preliminary plans for the very project being procured — and did the Board err by focusing exclusively on the departing engineers while largely excusing the firm's complicity?
Does the fact that the project was financed in part by a World Bank loan impose additional procurement integrity obligations on the engineers and the joint venture beyond those arising under NSPE canons alone — and should the Board have addressed those multilateral lending standards explicitly?
Were the other competing engineering firms — who lacked access to the preliminary design knowledge and owner relationships — cognizable victims of an ethical wrong, and should the Board have articulated a remedy or disclosure mechanism to protect them?
Does the Engineer Mobility Right — which affirms that engineers may freely pursue private employment after public service — irreconcilably conflict with the Revolving Door Integrity Violation principle when the engineer's primary competitive asset in the private market is specialized knowledge acquired exclusively in public service on the identical project?
How should the Faithful Agent Obligation owed to the U.S. federal employer be weighed against the Pre-Departure Promotional Negotiation Prohibition when an engineer argues that exploring private opportunities is itself a legitimate exercise of professional autonomy — and does covert negotiation while employed categorically breach loyalty regardless of whether confidential information was actually misused?
Does the Cloud of Doubt Standard — which condemns conduct that creates an appearance of unfair advantage even absent proven violation — conflict with the Fairness in Professional Competition principle when applying it effectively bars engineers from competing in markets where their superior technical knowledge, however acquired, would otherwise be a legitimate professional credential?
Does the NSPE Policy 52 Mobility Right Constraint — which conditions but does not eliminate an engineer's right to transition from public to private practice — conflict with the Post-Public-Service Conflict Avoidance principle in a way that the Board's proposed supplemental rule resolves too broadly, potentially chilling legitimate post-government careers whenever an engineer has worked on any phase of a large infrastructure project?
From a deontological perspective, did the U.S. Agency engineers fulfill their duty of undivided loyalty to their federal employer when they negotiated with private consulting firms and formed a corporation while still drawing a government salary and holding insider access to the hydroelectric project's foundational plans?
From a consequentialist perspective, did the competitive harm suffered by other engineering firms that lacked insider access to the hydroelectric project's preliminary design outweigh any efficiency benefits gained by awarding the contract to engineers who already possessed specialized project knowledge?
From a virtue ethics perspective, did the private consulting engineering firm demonstrate professional integrity when it knowingly structured a joint venture with engineers who had prepared the preliminary plans in a public capacity, thereby incorporating insider advantage into its competitive bid for the same project?
From a deontological perspective, does the Board's proposed supplemental rule — prohibiting promotional negotiations for work on a specific project for which an engineer gained specialized knowledge while employed — represent a categorical moral duty that applies universally regardless of whether the engineer transitions to private practice independently or through a joint venture structure?
Would the Board have reached a different ethical conclusion if the U.S. Agency engineers had fully disclosed their private negotiations to their federal employer and to the foreign government client before those negotiations were concluded, rather than resigning only at or about the time the contract was finalized?
What if the U.S. Agency engineers had resigned first, observed a meaningful cooling-off period, and only then approached private consulting firms about the hydroelectric project — would their subsequent participation in the design and supervision contract have been ethically permissible under the NSPE Canons and the Board's proposed supplemental rule?
Would the ethical analysis have changed if the private consulting engineering firm had declined to include the former U.S. Agency engineers in its joint venture and instead competed for the hydroelectric contract solely on the basis of its own qualifications, without leveraging the insider knowledge those engineers possessed?
If the hydroelectric project had been entirely domestically financed rather than partially funded by a World Bank loan, would the ethical obligations of the U.S. Agency engineers regarding competitive procurement integrity and insider knowledge exploitation have been materially different, or does the Board's analysis imply a uniform standard regardless of the funding source?
NSPE BER in evaluating whether the engineers' transition from the U.S. Agency to private practice was ethically permissible
Provides the regulatory and policy framework restricting government engineers from moving directly into private contracts that exploit relationships, insider knowledge, and plans developed during their public service on the same project
Creates a 'revolving door' appearance that undermines public confidence in government engineering agencies
May have deprived the U.S. Agency of the engineers' undivided attention and loyalty during the critical final phase of their employment
Raises questions about whether the engineers' final period of public employment was compromised by their concurrent private commercial activities
The timing pattern creates a strong inference that public employment status was instrumentalized to secure the private contract
Formal compliance with resignation procedures (engineers did ultimately resign before entering the contract)
Technical exercise of the right to resign and seek new employment (NSPE Professional Policy No. 52)
Avoidance of instrumentalizing public employment for private commercial gain
Canon 19 protection of the engineering profession's collective reputation
Integrity of the public-private employment transition
Protection of public trust in government agencies
Secure the contract with the foreign government while still benefiting from the credibility, access, and insider advantages of public employment status, then resign to avoid ongoing conflict-of-interest obligations once the commercial objective was achieved
Canon 19: obligation to protect the engineering profession from conduct that creates misrepresentation or misunderstanding about the integrity of professional practice
Knowledge of contract negotiation timelines and milestones
Strategic awareness of the competitive advantages conferred by public employment status
Understanding of employment law and resignation procedures
Transition point; at or about the time negotiations with the foreign government were concluded
Duty of undivided loyalty to the U.S. Agency through the full period of employment, not merely in formal terms
Duty to avoid using public employment status as a commercial instrument for private gain
Obligation to avoid 'revolving door' conduct that undermines public trust in government engineering agencies
Obligation to ensure that the transition from public to private employment does not exploit the timing of contract execution
The engineers deliberately timed their resignations from the U.S. Agency to coincide with or immediately follow the conclusion of the contract with the foreign government, minimizing the temporal gap between their public service and private gain. This timing decision ensured the contract was secured before relinquishing the insider advantages of their public employment status.
Time Resignations Strategically (Action 4) → Government Contract Awarded To Joint Venture (Event 5)
The engineers deliberately timed their resignations from the U.S. Agency to coincide with or immediately follow the finalization of private arrangements, ensuring continuity of the scheme and enabling formal contract entry with the foreign government
Time Resignations Strategically (Action 4)
If engineers had resigned first and then competed openly without pre-arranged agreements, the contract award process would have been subject to genuine competition; the specific award to this joint venture was contingent on the pre-arranged structure being in place at the moment of resignation
Government Contract Awarded To Joint Venture (Event 5)
Absence of post-employment restriction period enforced by U.S. Agency
Foreign government's readiness to award contract immediately upon engineers' availability
Pre-arranged joint venture already in place at time of resignation
Resignations timed to follow rather than precede private arrangements
Strategic resignation timing + pre-concluded joint venture + foreign government contract readiness = sufficient to produce immediate contract award without competitive interference
Transitional Employment Ethics Framework
At or about the time the negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, this group of engineers resigned their positions with the U.S. Agency
NSPE BER as a deliberative decision tool
Analytical framework for evaluating the ethical obligations of engineers transitioning from the U.S. Agency to private practice, addressing conflicts of interest, use of insider knowledge from the basic plans, and procurement integrity even absent explicit legal prohibition
U.S. Federal Agency Basic Plans Preparer
{'function': 'Prepared basic plans for the hydroelectric project', 'role_in_ethics': 'Employer whose trust and resources were exploited by departing engineers'}
The U.S. federal agency that prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project and employed the engineers who subsequently negotiated private contracts for the same project while still on its payroll.
{'type': 'employer', 'target': 'U.S. Agency Engineers Group'}
Several engineers in the employ of the U.S. Agency responsible for the basic plans
Axiomatic Professional Loyalty Non-Division Principle Self-Application Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to apply the foundational principle that a professional may not take action that divides their loyalties between their employer and a competing private interest — recognizing that negotiating private contracts for the same project on which they served as public agents constituted a paradigmatic loyalty division.
Engineers' private negotiations while employed created a direct division of loyalty between their public employer and their private competitive interest.
Failure: The engineers divided their loyalties by simultaneously serving the U.S. Agency as public engineers and pursuing private competitive advantage on the same project.
Several engineers in the employ of the U.S. Agency responsible for the basic plans negotiated with at least two engineering firms with the intent of taking part in the design and supervision of the work.
Cloud-of-Doubt Procurement Appearance Self-Assessment Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to assess whether their competitive engagement for the hydroelectric full design contract — even absent proven misconduct — raised a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise, and to recognize that this cloud of doubt itself implicated Section 19 collective reputation protection obligations
BER concluded that even though no specific unfair conduct was established, the possibility of unfair insider advantage use raised a cloud of doubt about the purity of the competitive enterprise
The BER's finding that even without established misconduct, the possibility of unfair advantage use raised a cloud of doubt sufficient to implicate Section 19
Concurrent Conflict Disclosure Timing Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to recognize that the disclosure obligation to their public employer arose at the initiation of private employment negotiations — not at the point of resignation — and to act on that recognition by making timely proactive disclosure.
Engineers concluded negotiations and formed a corporation before resigning, demonstrating failure to recognize the early-stage disclosure trigger.
Failure: The engineers allowed negotiations to mature to contract conclusion before resigning, never making the required timely disclosure to the U.S. Agency.
Negotiations were finally concluded between this group and a firm of consulting engineers for a cooperative project to execute the work, and the group of employees formed a corporation to be a part of a joint venture
At or about the time the negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, this group of engineers resigned their positions
Concurrent Private Negotiation Employer Disclosure Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to immediately disclose to the U.S. Agency upon initiating negotiations with private consulting firms for post-employment work on the hydroelectric project — a project within their direct public agency responsibilities.
Engineers negotiated with private firms while still employed by U.S. Agency, without disclosing these negotiations to their employer.
Failure: The engineers conducted covert negotiations with at least two private engineering firms without disclosing these negotiations to the U.S. Agency employer.
Dual-Role Faithful Agent Breach Self-Recognition Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to recognize that simultaneously holding public agency employment and covertly negotiating private contracts for work on the same project constituted a fundamental breach of their faithful agent duty to the U.S. Agency.
Engineers negotiated private contracts for the same project on which they were employed as public agency engineers, creating an irreconcilable dual-role conflict.
Failure: The engineers conducted private negotiations while still employed, failing to recognize that this dual-role conduct was a paradigmatic faithful agent breach.
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to identify and avoid the specific mechanisms through which their insider knowledge could be used unfairly — including withholding information from competitors, misrepresenting the importance of their insider access to the owner, and submitting artificially low fee proposals enabled by privileged project data
Engineers with insider knowledge of the hydroelectric project competed for the full design contract; the BER identified three specific mechanisms of potential unfair advantage use
The BER's analysis of three specific unfair-use mechanisms that could have been employed, even though none was conclusively established
Engineers who prepared the basic plans possessed privileged technical knowledge of the project parameters, design assumptions, and project report that gave them an informational advantage over competing consulting firms in the private procurement.
U.S. Agency engineers who prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project
Insider Knowledge Competitive Advantage Prohibition Constraint
The U.S. Agency engineers were prohibited from leveraging their privileged, non-public technical knowledge of the hydroelectric project — gained through preparation of the basic plans in their public capacity — to obtain a competitive advantage in the subsequent private procurement for the project's design and construction supervision.
NSPE Code of Ethics; Government Agency Confidential Information Access Policy; Engineer Confidentiality and Loyalty Obligation Standard
From the time of resignation through any period during which the insider knowledge remains competitively operative
the project report was made by an agency of the foreign government, with the assistance of a team from the U.S. Agency
The hydroelectric project was for a foreign government and financed by the World Bank, creating a potential argument that different ethical standards might apply in the international context — an argument the NSPE Code categorically rejects.
U.S. Agency engineers practicing in the international arena on the foreign government hydroelectric project
NSPE International Member Uniform Ethics Standard Constraint
The U.S. Agency engineers, as NSPE members practicing in the international arena, were bound by the same uniform NSPE Code of Ethics standards as in domestic practice — and could not invoke the international or foreign context as a basis for relaxing conflict of interest, faithful agent, or honorable conduct obligations.
NSPE Code of Ethics; BER Cases 76-6, 96-5; NSPE International Member Uniform Ethics Standard
An agency of a foreign government invited proposals from consulting engineering firms to complete the design and supervise the construction of a hydroelectric project which is being financed in part by a World Bank loan
Throughout the international engineering engagement on the foreign government hydroelectric project
International Practice Slippery Slope Ethical Consequence Reasoning Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to reason about the systemic consequences of permitting government engineers to exploit insider knowledge in international procurement — recognizing that normalizing such conduct would undermine the integrity of international engineering procurement and harm the public welfare of host-country populations.
U.S. government engineers competing for a foreign government project using insider knowledge gained through public employment — a pattern that, if normalized, would systematically undermine international engineering procurement integrity.
Failure: The engineers did not apply this systemic reasoning, treating their conduct as an isolated personal career decision rather than a precedent-setting professional ethics matter.
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to recognize that the World Bank financing of the hydroelectric project created additional procurement integrity obligations — including obligations to the World Bank as a stakeholder — that their insider-advantage joint venture arrangement violated.
Project was financed in part by a World Bank loan, creating multilateral lender procurement integrity obligations beyond the bilateral foreign government client relationship.
Failure: The engineers did not account for the World Bank's procurement integrity requirements in their competitive conduct.
NSPE Policy 52 Ethics-Conditioned Mobility Right Self-Application Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to apply NSPE Policy 52 correctly — affirming their right to resign and enter private practice while recognizing that right was conditioned on full consistency with the Canons of Ethics regarding faithful agency, conflict of interest, and competitive fairness
Engineers resigned from U.S. federal agency and sought to compete for the full design contract on the hydroelectric project they had worked on in preliminary design
The engineers' decision to resign and form a joint venture for the hydroelectric project design contract, which implicated the ethics-conditioned mobility right framework
Post-Public-Service Recusal Judgment Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to recognize that upon transitioning from their public agency role, they were obligated to recuse themselves from any involvement in the preparation of proposals or execution of the full design contract for the hydroelectric project — a project on which they had exercised public authority.
Engineers transitioned from public agency role directly into private contract for the same project on which they had public authority.
Failure: Rather than recusing themselves, the engineers actively pursued and obtained the design contract through their joint venture, directly exploiting their prior public role.
At or about the time the negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, this group of engineers resigned their positions with the U.S. Agency and shortly thereafter entered into contract with the foreign government.
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to correctly identify the scope of their recusal obligations upon transitioning from their federal agency roles — including determining whether competing for the full design contract on the hydroelectric project they had worked on in preliminary design required recusal or restructured competitive engagement
Engineers transitioned from public agency preliminary design role to private competitive engagement for the full design contract on the same project
The engineers' failure to recuse from competitive engagement for the full design contract after having performed preliminary design work in their public agency capacity
Preliminary Design Insider Advantage Competitive Fairness Self-Assessment Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to assess whether their personal and intimate knowledge of the hydroelectric project — gained through preliminary design work — and their personal acquaintance with the project owner's representatives created distinct competitive advantages that were being used unfairly in the subsequent full design procurement
Engineers who performed preliminary design work on the hydroelectric project subsequently competed for the full design contract, possessing insider technical knowledge and personal relationships with the owner's representatives
The engineers' competitive engagement for the full design contract after having performed preliminary design work, raising the question of whether insider advantages were used fairly
Public Agency Basic Plans Non-Conversion to Private Competitive Instrument Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to recognize that the basic plans they prepared in their public capacity were public agency property and could not be leveraged as a private competitive instrument to position their joint venture as uniquely qualified for the full design contract.
Engineers responsible for preparing the U.S. Agency's basic plans used that insider knowledge to negotiate with private firms and compete for the full design contract.
Failure: The engineers used their intimate knowledge of and responsibility for the basic plans as the foundation for their private competitive positioning, converting public work product into private advantage.
Revolving Door Conflict Recognition Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to recognize that their transition from a senior public agency role — in which they prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project — to a private joint venture competing for the full design contract constituted a paradigmatic revolving door conflict of interest.
Engineers employed by U.S. Agency who prepared basic plans negotiated with private firms and formed a joint venture corporation while still employed, then resigned to enter private contract.
Failure: The engineers did not recognize or act on the revolving door conflict, instead covertly negotiating and concluding private contracts while still employed.
Revolving Door Regulatory Gap Navigation Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to apply professional ethics principles to fill any regulatory gap created by the absence of explicit cooling-off period provisions in their employment contracts, maintaining ethical standards that exceeded the minimum required by formal rules.
No explicit cooling-off period or revolving door provision is mentioned in the case; engineers proceeded as if the absence of explicit prohibition constituted permission.
Failure: The engineers appear to have relied on the absence of explicit contractual prohibitions to justify their conduct, rather than applying the higher ethical standard required by professional codes.
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to apply Section 19 of the NSPE Canons — protecting the engineering profession collectively and individually from misrepresentation and misunderstanding — to their own competitive procurement conduct, recognizing that the cloud of doubt raised by their insider advantage implicated the profession's collective reputation
BER applied Section 19 of the NSPE Canons to the engineers' competitive engagement, finding that the cloud of doubt about insider advantage use implicated the collective reputation protection obligation
The BER's invocation of Section 19 as the applicable normative standard for evaluating the engineers' competitive conduct in the hydroelectric project procurement
Departing Employee Specialized Knowledge Competitive Restriction Self-Assessment Capability
The U.S. Agency engineers were required to self-assess whether their specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project — gained through preparing the basic plans — ethically restricted their ability to compete for the full design contract without prior disclosure to and consent from the U.S. Agency.
Engineers gained intimate technical knowledge of the hydroelectric project through their public agency work and used it as the basis for private competitive solicitation.
Failure: The engineers did not disclose their specialized knowledge to the U.S. Agency before using it competitively, and did not obtain employer consent before leveraging project-specific insider knowledge.
the project report was made by an agency of the foreign government, with the assistance of a team from the U.S. Agency.
Engineers who prepared the basic plans resigned and immediately competed for private execution of the same project, leveraging specialized knowledge acquired in public capacity without consent of interested parties.
Employed Engineer Specialized Project Knowledge Consent-Required Competition Constraint
After departing from the U.S. Agency, the engineers were prohibited from engaging in promotional efforts or negotiations for private work on the hydroelectric project — the specific project on which they had gained particular and specialized knowledge in their public capacity — without the consent of all interested parties, including the U.S. Agency and the foreign government client.
NSPE Code §7(a); BER Case 77-8; Specialized Knowledge Post-Departure Competition Restriction Constraint
From the time of resignation through any period during which the specialized knowledge remains competitively operative
conclusion of negotiations with foreign government meets resignation from U.S. Agency
conclusion of negotiations with foreign government
Entity1 ends exactly when Entity2 begins
Defeasibility edge from tensionresolution
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.91
The Board uses Policy No. 52 to frame the analysis: mobility is protected, but the ethical question shifts to whether the manner of competitive conduct following departure was consistent with the Canons
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.87
The Board resolves the tension by invoking Section 19 (collective reputation protection) rather than making a direct finding of specific violation — allowing ethical concern to be registered without a definitive finding of proven misconduct
The Board does not find a proven violation of the unfair-use prohibition but holds that the structural possibility of unfair use is sufficient to implicate professional ethics under the collective reputation protection provision
Defeasibility edge from constraintstatement
source_field=constraintstatement; confidence=0.88
Even absent confirmed unfair use of insider advantages, the U.S. Agency engineers and their private consulting firm joint venture partner were constrained by Section 19 of the NSPE Canons to structure their competitive engagement in a manner that did not raise a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise — because the mere possibility that insider advantages might have been exploited through information withholding, misrepresentation, or artificially low fees implicated the duty to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and misunderstanding.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.9
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.93
The mobility right is affirmed as a baseline, but the Board holds that its exercise must be consistent with the Canons of Ethics — the right to depart does not immunize the manner of departure or subsequent competitive conduct from ethical scrutiny
The general right to seek private employment does not extend to concluding binding private contracts for work on the same project during active public employment; the principle draws the line at concluded negotiations, not at mere career exploration.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.92
The faithful agent obligation does not prohibit eventual departure for private practice, but it does prohibit using the employment relationship as a platform for covert private contracting; the engineers could have resigned first and then negotiated, which would have respected the faithful agent boundary.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.88
The revolving door principle overrides the general freedom to seek private employment when the private engagement is specifically structured to exploit the prior public role on the same project.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.89
The Board uses Section 19 as the operative provision precisely because it does not require proof of specific improper acts — the creation of doubt about professional purity is itself the cognizable harm to collective professional reputation
The appearance and reality of improper advantage — derived from the engineers' public role in preparing the basic plans — is sufficient to trigger the conflict avoidance obligation regardless of the formal distinction between the U.S. Agency and the foreign government client.
source_field=constraintstatement; confidence=0.9
The U.S. Agency engineers were ethically prohibited from immediately transitioning from their public agency roles — in which they prepared the foundational basic plans — to private contracting on the same hydroelectric project, even in the absence of explicit contractual revolving door provisions, because such conduct violates the spirit of the NSPE Code's purity of enterprise and honorable conduct requirements.
source_field=constraintstatement; confidence=0.91
The U.S. Agency engineers were constrained from competing for the hydroelectric project full design contract without consent of all interested parties because they had gained particular and specialized knowledge — including preliminary design parameters, project-specific technical data, and personal relationships with owner representatives — during their public employment on the very project for which they were now competing privately.
source_field=constraintstatement; confidence=0.92
The transition of the U.S. Agency engineers from their public agency role — in which they held responsibility for the basic plans and project report — to private contracting on the same project created a structural conflict of interest that constrained their permissible scope of private work, required immediate disclosure to all relevant stakeholders, and prohibited participation in work that would exploit their insider knowledge and relationships acquired in the public role.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.82
The joint venture ethical equivalence principle reinforces rather than conflicts with this prohibition: because the joint venture bears the same ethical obligations as a prime firm, the private firm cannot shelter behind the joint venture structure to avoid responsibility for the insider-advantage exploitation.
The private consulting engineering firm was prohibited from knowingly entering into a joint venture arrangement with the U.S. Agency engineers when the firm knew or reasonably should have known that those engineers' competitive advantage derived from insider knowledge, privileged relationships, and publicly-funded work product acquired during their public employment — because such knowing participation rendered the firm independently complicit in the ethical violation and independently violated NSPE Code honorable conduct and competitive integrity provisions.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.83
The joint venture ethical equivalence principle reinforces the complicity prohibition: the private firm bears the same ethical obligations as a prime firm and cannot shelter behind the joint venture structure to avoid responsibility for the insider-advantage exploitation.
The free and open competition principle reinforces fairness: the joint venture's insider advantage is not a product of free and open competition but of a structural distortion that the ethics code is designed to prevent.
source_field=constraintstatement; confidence=0.89
source_field=constraintstatement; confidence=0.94
The U.S. Agency engineers were absolutely prohibited from concluding binding private contracts, forming a joint venture corporation, and finalizing private employment arrangements for work on the hydroelectric project while still actively employed by the U.S. Agency — because such conduct constituted an absolute breach of faithful agent duties and an unmitigated conflict of interest during active public employment.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.94
The principle is violated at the point of concluded negotiations and corporate formation, not merely at the point of contract execution with the foreign government; the timing of resignation — 'at or about the time the negotiations with the foreign government were concluded' — confirms that the private contracting process was substantially complete before departure.
source_field=tensionresolution; confidence=0.85
The principle establishes that the disclosure obligation is strongest during active employment; no disclosure was made, constituting an independent violation separate from the substantive competitive conduct.
While still employed by the U.S. Agency, the engineers were required to immediately disclose to the U.S. Agency any employment negotiations with private consulting firms related to the hydroelectric project, and were prohibited from continuing to exercise any public duties related to the project while simultaneously negotiating private employment arrangements for the same project.
The duty of loyalty was not discharged by the eventual resignation; the violation occurred during the period of active negotiation while still employed, making the timing of resignation ethically insufficient to cure the breach.
The U.S. Agency engineers and their private consulting firm joint venture were required to avoid not only actual favoritism or impropriety in the procurement process, but also the appearance of favoritism or impropriety — and their participation in the procurement, leveraging insider knowledge and personal acquaintance with owner representatives, created an unavoidable appearance of impropriety that was independently ethically impermissible.
The U.S. Agency engineers and their private consulting firm joint venture were constrained by the requirement that the foreign government's procurement for the hydroelectric project design and supervision be conducted on a fair, open, and merit-based basis — and their exploitation of insider knowledge and relationships acquired in public capacity undermined this competitive fairness requirement.
The U.S. Agency engineers were constrained from exploiting the personal and intimate project knowledge gained from their preliminary design work and the personal acquaintance with owner representatives as unfair competitive instruments — including by withholding information from competitors, misrepresenting the importance of their insider knowledge to the owner, or submitting an artificially low fee — in their pursuit of the hydroelectric project design contract.
Following their resignation from the U.S. Agency, the engineers were prohibited from exploiting confidential technical information, project parameters, insider knowledge, and non-public procurement intelligence acquired during their public tenure — including knowledge embedded in the basic plans and project report — to benefit their private joint venture in dealings with the foreign government client.
The U.S. Agency engineers' near-simultaneous resignation and private contracting on the same hydroelectric project — with no meaningful cooling-off period — constituted an ethical violation because the absence of any temporal separation demonstrated that the private arrangement was effectively concluded during the period of public employment, regardless of the technical timing of the formal resignation.
source_field=constraintstatement; confidence=0.93
The U.S. Agency engineers were constrained by revolving door ethics principles from immediately transitioning from their public agency roles — in which they prepared the preliminary design of the hydroelectric project and formed personal acquaintance with owner representatives — to private contracting for the same project's full design, because such immediate transition exploited the purity of their public service role for private competitive gain.
Unlike the general post-departure specialized knowledge constraint — which requires only consent of former employer or client — this principle establishes a stronger prohibition because the knowledge at issue is embodied in publicly-funded work product that belongs to the public interest, not merely to the former employer.
The U.S. Agency engineers were prohibited from converting the publicly-funded basic plans they had prepared in their public capacity into a private competitive instrument — including by leveraging their authorship of and familiarity with those plans to secure a private contract for the project's design execution — because the basic plans remained the property and product of the U.S. Agency and could not ethically be repurposed as a private competitive advantage.
The absence of explicit revolving door provisions in the U.S. Agency engineers' employment contracts did not relieve them of independent ethical obligations under the NSPE Code — including conflict of interest avoidance, faithful agency, and honorable conduct — and did not constitute implicit permission to exploit their insider knowledge and relationships for private competitive gain.
The U.S. Agency engineers, while still employed and having gained particular and specialized knowledge about the hydroelectric project through preparation of the basic plans, were required to make full disclosure to the U.S. Agency before engaging in any promotional efforts or negotiations for private work on that specific project — because such use of employer-entrusted knowledge without disclosure constituted a breach of duties of loyalty, good faith, and disclosure.
engineers' employment at U.S. Agency (and insider knowledge gained) before competitive proposal process for hydroelectric project design
the personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project and the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms who may have considered the offering of their services to the owner
engineers' employment at U.S. Agency (and insider knowledge gained)
competitive proposal process for hydroelectric project design
engineers' employment at U.S. Agency overlaps negotiations with at least two consulting engineering firms
negotiations with at least two consulting engineering firms
Entity1 starts before Entity2 and ends during Entity2
formation of corporation before resignation from U.S. Agency
the group of employees formed a corporation to be a part of a joint venture... At or about the time the negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, this group of engineers resigned their positions with the U.S. Agency
negotiation with at least two consulting firms before final negotiation concluded with one consulting firm
Several engineers in the employ of the U.S. Agency responsible for the basic plans negotiated with at least two engineering firms... Negotiations were finally concluded between this group and a firm of consulting engineers
negotiation with at least two consulting firms
final negotiation concluded with one consulting firm
negotiations with consulting firms before formation of corporation (joint venture entity)
formation of corporation (joint venture entity)
preparation of basic plans for hydroelectric project by U.S. Agency engineers before foreign government invitation for proposals from consulting firms
The basic plans for the project were prepared by an agency of the Federal Government of the United States... An agency of a foreign government invited proposals from consulting engineering firms to complete the design and supervise the construction
preparation of basic plans for hydroelectric project by U.S. Agency engineers
foreign government invitation for proposals from consulting firms
resignation from U.S. Agency before entering into contract with foreign government
this group of engineers resigned their positions with the U.S. Agency and shortly thereafter entered into contract with the foreign government
entering into contract with foreign government
The U.S. Agency engineers crossed the literal boundary of this principle by not merely discussing or planning but actually concluding negotiations and forming a corporation for a joint venture while still employed — conduct that goes beyond
The U.S. Agency engineers owed an undivided duty of loyalty to their federal employer while still employed, which was violated when they negotiated private contracts for work directly related to the basic plans they had prepared in their pu
The U.S. Agency engineers converted the basic plans they had prepared in their public capacity — publicly-funded technical work product — into a private competitive advantage by using their intimate knowledge of those plans, and their perso
The U.S. Agency engineers used their particular and specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project — gained by preparing the basic plans in their public capacity — to negotiate competitive private contracts without making any disclosure
The U.S. Agency engineers violated their faithful agent obligation to their public employer by covertly negotiating private contracts for work related to their public duties, using their employer's resources, relationships, and work product
The U.S. Agency engineers, having held public positions with direct responsibility for the basic plans of the hydroelectric project, accepted private contracts with the foreign government for the same project in circumstances where their pr
The U.S. Agency engineers concluded binding negotiations with a private consulting firm and formed a corporation for a joint venture — all while still employed by the U.S. Agency — constituting the core violation of the prohibition on concl
The Board affirmed the basic right of the U.S. Agency engineers to resign from their federal positions and enter private practice or accept other employment, recognizing this as an axiomatic freedom of American citizens and a formally recog
The U.S. Agency engineers transitioned from their public agency role — in which they had prepared the basic plans and had personal acquaintance with the foreign government's representatives — to a private joint venture specifically structur
NSPE Professional Policy No. 52 is cited to establish that engineer mobility rights are conditioned on consistency with the Canons of Ethics regarding relations with clients and employers, and that unreasonable contractual limitations on mo
The Board's analysis treated free and open competition as the foundational boundary condition within which the joint venture's procurement conduct must be assessed — recognizing that while competitive market access is a basic legal and ethi
The joint venture between the former U.S. Agency engineers and the private consulting firm created a structurally unfair competitive environment for all other engineering firms invited to submit proposals, because those firms could not repl
The Board identified that the engineers' personal and intimate knowledge of the project from preliminary design work, and their personal acquaintance with the owner's representatives, gave them 'many distinct advantages' over competing firm
The private consulting engineering firm knowingly entered into a cooperative arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers, with full awareness that the engineers' value to the arrangement derived from their insider knowledge of and rel
The Board applied the cloud-of-doubt standard to hold that although specific improper uses of insider advantages were not established, the structural possibility that such uses occurred — combined with the Board's investigative limitations
The private consulting engineering firm structured its competitive positioning by entering into a cooperative arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers specifically to leverage their insider knowledge of and relationships with the f
The Board invoked NSPE Canon Section 19 — the obligation to protect the engineering profession collectively and individually from misrepresentation and misunderstanding — as the applicable provision when specific violations under other sect
The other engineering firms who submitted or considered submitting proposals for the hydroelectric project design contract suffered a cognizable ethical injury — not merely a commercial loss — because the joint venture's insider advantage m
The Board's analysis implicitly invoked fairness in professional competition by identifying the structural disadvantage suffered by other competing firms who lacked the preliminary design knowledge, project familiarity, and personal relatio
The hydroelectric project, financed in part by a World Bank loan, was subject to procurement integrity obligations that required the selection process to be conducted on a fair, competitive, qualification-based basis — obligations that were
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to proactively disclose to the project owner and all relevant stakeholders the nature and extent of their prior public agency role — including their preparation of the basic plans and personal acquai
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to proactively disclose to all relevant stakeholders — including the foreign government client, the World Bank, and their joint venture partner — the nature and extent of their prior public agency ro
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from concluding binding private contracts, forming a joint venture corporation, and finalizing cooperative arrangements with a private consulting firm for the hydroelectric project design
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from accepting private employment — through joint venture or otherwise — on the hydroelectric project without ensuring that a sufficient cooling-off period had elapsed and that adequate co
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to act as faithful agents and trustees of their public employer — the U.S. Agency — by refraining from covertly negotiating private contracts for work related to the hydroelectric project while still
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to structure their competitive engagement for the hydroelectric project design contract in a manner that did not raise a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise — specifically by refraining
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to exercise their fundamental right to resign and enter private practice in a manner fully consistent with the Canons of Ethics — including refraining from exploiting insider knowledge of the hydroel
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated to refrain from exploiting the incumbent advantage created by its joint venture arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers, including refraining from using those engineers' inside
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated to refrain from knowingly entering into a cooperative joint venture arrangement with the U.S. Agency engineers, given that the firm knew or reasonably should have known that the engineer
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated to refrain from exploiting the incumbent advantage created by its joint venture with the former U.S. Agency engineers — including refraining from using the engineers' insider knowledge,
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated under Section 19 of the NSPE Canons of Ethics to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and misunderstanding by refraining from entering into a joint venture arrangeme
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from using or exploiting confidential technical information, project parameters, and insider knowledge gained during their public agency employment — including knowledge of the basic plans
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated, upon transitioning from their public agency role, to recuse themselves from any involvement in the preparation, submission, or negotiation of proposals for the hydroelectric project design contract
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to make full disclosure to their U.S. Agency employer before using or leveraging their particular and specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project — gained by preparing the basic plans in their
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from converting the publicly-funded basic plans they had prepared in their public capacity — and the intimate technical knowledge and personal acquaintance with the project owner's represe
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from negotiating and concluding private employment arrangements with consulting firms for work on the hydroelectric project while still holding their public agency positions, and to disclo
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to pursue the hydroelectric project design contract exclusively through merit-based, qualification-based, and honest competitive means — refraining from leveraging insider knowledge of publicly-funde
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated, upon transitioning from their federal agency roles, to recuse themselves from competitive engagement for the hydroelectric project full design contract — or at minimum to establish and disclose adeq
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated under Section 19 of the NSPE Canons of Ethics to endeavor to protect the engineering profession collectively and individually from misrepresentation and misunderstanding by ensuring that their compet
{'financing': 'Partially financed by World Bank loan', 'prior_involvement': 'Prepared the project report with assistance from U.S. Agency team'}
Agency of a foreign government that invited proposals for and ultimately contracted with the joint venture (private firm + former U.S. Agency engineers) to complete the design and supervise construction of a World Bank-financed hydroelectric project.
{'type': 'client', 'target': 'Private Consulting Engineering Firm Joint Venture Partner'}
{'type': 'client', 'target': 'U.S. Agency Engineers Group'}
Foreign Government Engineering Services Client
Engineers who prepared the preliminary design and formed personal acquaintance with owner representatives gained distinct advantages over competing firms; the crucial question was whether these advantages were used unfairly
NSPE Code of Ethics; Section 19 of NSPE Canons of Ethics
Throughout the competitive procurement for the hydroelectric project design contract following resignation from the U.S. Agency
A private consulting engineering firm concluded negotiations with the group of U.S. Agency engineers and formed a joint venture corporation to execute the hydroelectric project design, knowing that the engineers had prepared the basic plans in their public capacity.
Private consulting engineering firm that entered joint venture with the U.S. Agency engineers
Joint Venture Insider-Advantage Knowing Participation Prohibition Constraint
NSPE Code of Ethics; Competitive Procurement Fairness Constraint; Appearance of Impropriety Avoidance in Public Procurement Constraint
From the time of joint venture formation through the duration of the private contract
Engineers resigned from the U.S. Agency and nearly simultaneously formed a joint venture corporation to compete for and execute the full design of the same hydroelectric project whose preliminary design they had prepared in their public capacity
NSPE Code of Ethics; Revolving Door Ethics Constraint; Section 19 NSPE Canons
the personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project and the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms
From resignation from the U.S. Agency through the competitive procurement and contract award for the hydroelectric project design
Engineers who prepared the preliminary design of the hydroelectric project in their public capacity resigned and immediately competed for the full design contract, leveraging specialized technical knowledge and owner relationships acquired during public employment
Specialized Knowledge Post-Departure Competition Restriction Constraint
NSPE Code of Ethics Section III.4; BER Case 77-11 specialized knowledge restriction
the personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project and the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms who may have considered the offering of their services to the owner.
From resignation from the U.S. Agency through the competitive procurement for the hydroelectric project design contract
The engineers' personal acquaintance with owner representatives and their insider knowledge of the project created an appearance of unfair insider advantage that cast a cloud of doubt over the competitive fairness of the procurement.
U.S. Agency engineers and the private consulting firm joint venture
Appearance of Impropriety Avoidance in Public Procurement Constraint
NSPE Code of Ethics; BER Cases 82-2, 15-7, 16-3; Public Official Conflict of Interest Standard
An agency of a foreign government invited proposals from consulting engineering firms
Throughout the procurement process for the hydroelectric project design and supervision contract
The foreign government invited proposals from consulting engineering firms, implying a competitive procurement process. The U.S. Agency engineers' insider advantage — derived from their public role in preparing the basic plans — undermined the fairness of this competitive process.
Competitive Procurement Fairness Constraint
NSPE Code of Ethics; World Bank procurement requirements; International Engineering Procurement Competitive Integrity Obligation
Engineers negotiated with at least two private engineering firms while still employed by the U.S. Agency and responsible for the basic plans of the hydroelectric project.
Concurrent Employment Negotiation Disclosure Constraint
NSPE Code Section II.4.a; Dual-Public-Private Employment Ethics Standard
Throughout the period of active employment negotiation with private consulting firms while still employed by the U.S. Agency
Engineers with specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project's basic plans negotiated with private firms while still employed, without disclosed consent from the U.S. Agency.
Employed Engineer Specialized Knowledge Current-Client Solicitation Full-Disclosure Prerequisite Constraint
NSPE Code Section III.4.a; BER Case 82-5; Employed Engineer Specialized Knowledge Standard
Throughout the period of active employment by the U.S. Agency
The engineers resigned from the U.S. Agency 'at or about the time' negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, and 'shortly thereafter' entered into contract — demonstrating no meaningful cooling-off period between public duties and private contracting.
Immediate Post-Resignation Same-Project Private Contract Ethical Prohibition Constraint
NSPE Code of Ethics; Cooling-Off Period Framework; Revolving Door Employment Policy; Transitional Employment Ethics Framework
From the time of resignation through the entry into private contract with the foreign government
The case notes that no formal revolving door prohibition existed in the engineers' employment terms, yet the BER analysis proceeds on the basis that ethical obligations persist independently of contractual restrictions.
No Formal Revolving Door Provision Gap Constraint
NSPE Code of Ethics; No Formal Revolving Door Prohibition State (employment terms and applicable regulations)
Throughout the period of public employment and immediately following resignation
Engineers who resigned from the U.S. Agency immediately contracted with the foreign government, bringing with them confidential knowledge of the basic plans and project parameters developed in their public capacity.
NSPE Code Section III.4; Government Agency Confidential Information Access Policy; Engineer Confidentiality and Loyalty Obligation Standard
From the time of resignation onward; confidentiality obligation survives employment termination
Engineers who authored the basic plans for the hydroelectric project in their public capacity leveraged that authorship and associated knowledge to negotiate and secure a private contract for the project's execution.
Public-Agency-Authored Basic Plans Private Competitive Exploitation Prohibition Constraint
NSPE Code of Ethics faithful agent, conflict of interest, and honorable conduct provisions; Public Official Conflict of Interest Standard
From the time of resignation through the duration of the private procurement and contracting process
Engineers employed by U.S. Agency who prepared basic plans for a foreign government hydroelectric project negotiated with private firms and formed a joint venture corporation, resigning and contracting with the foreign government nearly simultaneously.
NSPE Code of Ethics; NSPE BER Case analysis; Revolving Door Employment Policy
From the time of resignation through any period during which the insider advantage from public employment remains competitively operative
The engineers concluded negotiations with a private consulting firm and formed a joint venture corporation at or about the same time they resigned from the U.S. Agency — indicating that the private arrangements were effectively concluded during the period of public employment.
Simultaneous Public Employment Private Contract Conclusion Absolute Prohibition Constraint
NSPE Code Sections II.4 and III.4; Dual-Public-Private Employment Ethics Standard; Public Official Conflict of Interest Standard
Throughout the period of active employment by the U.S. Agency, up to and including the moment of resignation
Competitive Disadvantage Harm to Excluded Firms as Cognizable Injury in Hydroelectric Procurement
Proposal process for hydroelectric project design and construction supervision contract
Free and Open Competition as Engineering Ethics Boundary Condition
The other engineering firms who submitted or considered submitting proposals for the hydroelectric project design contract suffered a cognizable ethical injury — not merely a commercial loss — because the joint venture's insider advantage made meaningful competition structurally impossible, undermining the integrity of the qualification-based selection process that all competing firms were entitled to rely upon.
The harm to competing firms is cognizable under the ethics code because it flows directly from a structural distortion of the competitive process, not from the joint venture's superior qualifications; the distinction between merit-based competitive advantage and insider-advantage competitive distortion is the key interpretive question.
Competitive Disadvantage Harm to Excluded Competing Firms as Ethics Code Cognizable Injury
The free and open competition principle supports rather than conflicts with recognizing the competitive harm: the ethics code's protection of free and open competition is the very basis on which the harm to excluded firms is cognizable.
Fairness in Competition Applied to Insider-Advantage Procurement
Competition for hydroelectric project full design contract
At-Will Employment Symmetry and Engineer Mobility Right
Insider Advantage Unfair Use Prohibition in Engineering Procurement
The Board's analysis implicitly invoked fairness in professional competition by identifying the structural disadvantage suffered by other competing firms who lacked the preliminary design knowledge, project familiarity, and personal relationships with the owner's representatives that the departing engineers possessed — framing the ethical question as whether the competition was conducted fairly given these asymmetries
Fairness in competition requires that structural informational asymmetries derived from prior insider access not be exploited in ways that make genuine merit-based competition impossible for excluded firms
gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms who may have considered the offering of their services to the owner
The Board acknowledges that some competitive advantage from prior engagement is inevitable and permissible, but holds that the manner of its use — not its mere existence — determines whether competition was fair
No Formal Revolving Door Prohibition on US Agency Engineers
Throughout the negotiation and transition period
No Formal Revolving Door Prohibition State
U.S. Agency engineers' employment terms and applicable regulations
Not terminated — absence of prohibition persists
Engineers proceeded with private negotiations and resignation without any formal legal bar being cited
{'disadvantage': 'No prior project knowledge or owner relationships', 'potential_harm': 'Possible information withholding and artificially low fee competition'}
Other engineering firms who may have considered offering their services for the full design contract but were at a structural disadvantage relative to the departing preliminary design engineers who held insider knowledge and owner relationships.
{'type': 'competitor', 'target': 'Departing Preliminary Design Employees'}
{'type': 'procurement_participant', 'target': 'Project Owner Client'}
Competitively Disadvantaged Competing Engineering Firm
many distinct advantages over any other firms who may have considered the offering of their services to the owner
by quoting a price which was lower than could be considered proper
by withholding certain information from the competitors
Owner Relationship Leveraged in Post-Departure Competition
From resignation through private contract solicitation and award
Competing firms lacking equivalent relationships
the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms
Prior Client Relationship Leveraged in Post-Departure Competition State
Personal acquaintance between resigning engineers and owner representatives, used as competitive advantage
Not terminated within the scope of this discussion
Engineers' prior professional contact with owner representatives during public-sector preliminary design work
The Board found that even without established violations, the possibility of unfair advantage use raised a cloud of doubt sufficient to implicate Section 19 profession-protection obligations
U.S. Agency Engineers and Private Consulting Firm
Section 19 Profession Misrepresentation Cloud-of-Doubt Appearance Constraint
Section 19 of NSPE Canons of Ethics: 'The engineer will endeavor to protect the engineering profession collectively and individually from misrepresentation and misunderstanding.'
Engineers transitioned from U.S. Agency public employment directly to private contracting on the same hydroelectric project, creating a structural revolving door conflict of interest.
Revolving Door Government-to-Competitor Employment Conflict Constraint
NSPE Code Sections II.4 and III.4; BER Cases 82-6 and 85-4; Revolving Door Employment Policy
From the time of resignation through the duration of the private contract on the same project
Engineers Post-Employment Conflict of Interest on Same Project
From resignation and private contract execution onward
Post-Employment Conflict of Interest State
Former U.S. Agency engineers now privately contracted to execute the project whose foundational plans they authored in public capacity
Not terminated within the case timeframe
Engineers transitioned from public authorship of basic plans to private execution contract on the same hydroelectric project
Free and Open Competition Boundary Applied to Joint Venture
Joint venture bid for hydroelectric project full design contract
Engineering Profession Collective Reputation Protection Obligation
The Board's analysis treated free and open competition as the foundational boundary condition within which the joint venture's procurement conduct must be assessed — recognizing that while competitive market access is a basic legal and ethical rule, the manner in which competition is conducted must still respect professional integrity obligations, particularly when insider advantages could distort the competitive process
Free and open competition does not immunize all competitive conduct; it establishes the framework within which professional integrity obligations constrain how competition is conducted, particularly when structural informational asymmetries could undermine genuine merit-based selection
The principle of free competition is affirmed as foundational but does not override the ethical constraints on how competition is conducted; the Board's analysis focuses on whether the competition was conducted within ethical bounds, not whether competition itself was permissible
This could have been accomplished by withholding certain information from the competitors, by misrepresentation to the owner of the importance of their inside information, or by quoting a price which was lower than could be considered proper
Joint Venture Corporation Formation for Project Execution
From formation of the corporation through contract execution with the foreign government
Joint Venture Unified Qualification Legal Entity State
Corporation formed by the group of engineers as part of a joint venture with the private consulting engineering firm
The group of employees formed a corporation to be a part of a joint venture to design the hydroelectric project
Pre-Departure Promotional Negotiation Prohibition Invoked Against U.S. Agency Engineers
Negotiation and conclusion of cooperative arrangement with private consulting firm while still employed
Competitive Employment Freedom With Confidentiality Constraint
The U.S. Agency engineers crossed the literal boundary of this principle by not merely discussing or planning but actually concluding negotiations and forming a corporation for a joint venture while still employed — conduct that goes beyond the permissible 'mere ideation' and squarely into prohibited active negotiation and contract conclusion.
The principle's literal boundary between permissible planning and prohibited negotiation was clearly exceeded when the engineers concluded negotiations, formed a corporation, and entered into a joint venture contract before resigning.
Pre-Departure Promotional Negotiation Prohibition With Literal Boundary
The principle's own literal boundary resolves the tension: concluded negotiations and corporate formation are unambiguously on the prohibited side of the line, regardless of the engineers' eventual resignation.
Prior Specialized Knowledge Bar on Same Project Execution
From acquisition of specialized knowledge through private engagement on the same project
Prior Specialized Knowledge Participation Bar State
U.S. Agency engineers' specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project acquired in public capacity
Not terminated — no consent of all parties documented in the case
Engineers gained specialized, privileged knowledge of the project by authoring its basic plans in their public-sector role, creating a participation bar absent consent of all interested parties
Procurement Integrity in Public Engineering Implicated by World Bank Financed Project
Procurement process for design and construction supervision of World Bank-financed hydroelectric project
The hydroelectric project, financed in part by a World Bank loan, was subject to procurement integrity obligations that required the selection process to be conducted on a fair, competitive, qualification-based basis — obligations that were undermined by the joint venture's exploitation of insider public-employment advantages.
The involvement of World Bank financing amplifies the procurement integrity obligation by adding an international public interest dimension; the principle applies to the procuring foreign government agency as well as to the competing engineers.
Procurement Integrity in Public Engineering
Procurement integrity and fairness in competition are mutually reinforcing in this context; both point toward the same conclusion that the insider-advantage joint venture compromised the integrity of the selection process.
Revolving Door Conflict Disclosure — U.S. Agency Engineers Hydroelectric Project
Former U.S. Agency engineers who had prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project transitioned to private practice and competed for the full design contract without documented disclosure of the structural insider advantage their prior public role conferred.
Revolving Door Conflict Disclosure Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to proactively disclose to the project owner and all relevant stakeholders the nature and extent of their prior public agency role — including their preparation of the basic plans and personal acquaintance with the owner's representatives — so that the conflict of interest arising from their revolving-door transition could be identified, evaluated, and appropriately managed before the competitive process proceeded.
It seems axiomatic that the personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project and the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms.
Prior to and during the competitive proposal submission for the hydroelectric project design contract
The engineers transitioned from their public agency role directly into private contract execution on the same project without disclosing the full nature of their prior public responsibilities and the insider advantage this created.
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to proactively disclose to all relevant stakeholders — including the foreign government client, the World Bank, and their joint venture partner — the nature and extent of their prior public agency role in preparing the basic plans for the hydroelectric project, so that conflicts of interest arising from their revolving-door transition could be identified and appropriately managed.
At the point of submitting proposals and concluding contracts with the foreign government
US Agency Engineers Insider Knowledge Advantage
From completion of basic plans through and beyond their private engagement on the same project
Not terminated — persists through private engagement
Engineers acquired intimate, privileged knowledge of the project by authoring its foundational plans in their public capacity
Unresolvable Cloud of Doubt Over Competitive Fairness
From the Board's review of the case through the issuance of its opinion; persists as an unresolved ethical cloud
It was not possible for the Board to meet and discuss the case and it could not bring in the witnesses for explanation or cross-examination
Unverifiable Insider Advantage Fairness Determination State
Board's ethical assessment of whether insider advantages were used unfairly by the resigning engineers
Not terminated; the Board explicitly acknowledges it cannot reach a definitive finding
It has not been established that any of these things occurred. However, they might have been used and in any case the possibility of the existence of one or more of these facets raises a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise
Board's inability to convene witnesses or conduct cross-examination, combined with the plausibility of multiple unfair advantage mechanisms
Fairness in Professional Competition Violated by Joint Venture Structure
The joint venture between the former U.S. Agency engineers and the private consulting firm created a structurally unfair competitive environment for all other engineering firms invited to submit proposals, because those firms could not replicate the insider technical knowledge and personal relationships with the foreign government's representatives that the joint venture possessed by virtue of the engineers' prior public role.
Fair competition requires that all firms compete on the basis of qualifications and merit accessible to any firm; when one competitor's advantage derives from a prior public role that others could not have occupied, the competition is structurally unfair regardless of the joint venture's technical competence.
The basic plans for the project were prepared by an agency of the Federal Government of the United States, and the project report was made by an agency of the foreign government, with the assistance of a team from the U.S. Agency.
Loyalty Obligation of U.S. Agency Engineers to Federal Employer
Negotiations with private consulting firms while still employed by U.S. Agency
The U.S. Agency engineers owed an undivided duty of loyalty to their federal employer while still employed, which was violated when they negotiated private contracts for work directly related to the basic plans they had prepared in their public capacity.
Loyalty in the public employment context requires that engineers refrain from using their employment position, access, and knowledge to advance competing private interests while the employment relationship subsists.
The engineers used their intimate knowledge of the publicly-prepared basic plans and their personal relationships with the foreign government agency's representatives — all gained in their public capacity — as the competitive foundation for their private joint venture.
Post-Public-Employment Confidential Information Non-Use Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from using or exploiting confidential technical information, project parameters, and insider knowledge gained during their public agency employment — including knowledge of the basic plans and personal acquaintance with the project owner's representatives — in their subsequent private engagement on the same hydroelectric project.
The basic plans for the project were prepared by an agency of the Federal Government of the United States, and the project report was made by an agency of the foreign government, with the assistance of a team from the U.S. Agency
From departure from U.S. Agency employment onward
The engineers transitioned directly from their public agency role — in which they had prepared the basic plans — to private contract execution on the same project, with no recusal period whatsoever.
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated, upon transitioning from their public agency role, to recuse themselves from any involvement in the preparation, submission, or negotiation of proposals for the hydroelectric project design contract — a project for which they had held direct public responsibility — for a period sufficient to eliminate the appearance and reality of improper advantage.
Immediately upon departure from U.S. Agency employment, for a sufficient cooling-off period
The engineers gained specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project's technical parameters, design basis, and owner relationships through their public agency work; they used this knowledge competitively without disclosing their private negotiations to their employer.
Specialized Knowledge Employer Disclosure Before Competitive Use Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to make full disclosure to their U.S. Agency employer before using or leveraging their particular and specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project — gained by preparing the basic plans in their public capacity — in competitive solicitation of the foreign government client.
Prior to initiating or concluding private negotiations with consulting firms or the foreign government
Private Firm Complicity Prohibition Violated by Consulting Firm Joint Venture Partner
Negotiation and conclusion of cooperative arrangement with former U.S. Agency engineers
Joint Venture Ethical Equivalence to Prime Firm Responsibility Principle
The private consulting engineering firm knowingly entered into a cooperative arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers, with full awareness that the engineers' value to the arrangement derived from their insider knowledge of and relationships with the project — making the firm a co-participant in the competitive distortion and independently responsible for the ethics violation.
The private firm's independent ethical obligation not to exploit another party's insider public-employment advantage is triggered by its knowing participation in the joint venture structure; the firm cannot claim ignorance of the engineers' prior public role given that the engineers' insider knowledge was the evident basis for the arrangement.
Private Firm Complicity Prohibition in Insider-Advantage Joint Ventures
The engineers had prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project as U.S. Agency employees; they then used that insider knowledge and those personal relationships as the competitive foundation for their joint venture bid for the full design and supervision contract.
Public Agency Basic Plans Non-Conversion to Private Competitive Instrument Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from converting the publicly-funded basic plans they had prepared in their public capacity — and the intimate technical knowledge and personal acquaintance with the project owner's representatives derived therefrom — into a private competitive instrument for obtaining the full design contract.
From the point of departure from U.S. Agency employment through the submission and award of the design contract
Cloud of Doubt Standard Applied to Insider-Advantage Procurement
Ethics analysis of joint venture procurement for hydroelectric project full design
Accused Engineer Procedural Fairness Right in Complaint Context
Proportionality in Misconduct Characterization
The Board applied the cloud-of-doubt standard to hold that although specific improper uses of insider advantages were not established, the structural possibility that such uses occurred — combined with the Board's investigative limitations — was sufficient to raise ethical concern and invoke the collective reputation protection provision of Section 19
The standard acknowledges that the inability to cross-examine witnesses and the nature of the evidence made a 'pinpoint decision' impossible, but holds that this epistemic limitation does not eliminate ethical concern when structural circumstances make improper conduct possible
Unproven-But-Possible Violation Cloud-of-Doubt Ethics Standard
It has not been established that any of these things occurred. However, they might have been used and in any case the possibility of the existence of one or more of these facets raises a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise.
Current-Employment Specialized Knowledge Disclosure Obligation Violated by U.S. Agency Engineers
Use of basic plan preparation knowledge to negotiate private design and supervision contracts
The U.S. Agency engineers used their particular and specialized knowledge of the hydroelectric project — gained by preparing the basic plans in their public capacity — to negotiate competitive private contracts without making any disclosure to their employer, the U.S. Agency, before doing so.
The engineers' intimate technical knowledge of the project, acquired through their public employment, constituted 'particular and specialized knowledge' within the meaning of this principle, triggering the disclosure obligation at its highest level given the active employment relationship.
Current-Employment Specialized Knowledge Disclosure Obligation Before Competitive Use
Faithful Agent Obligation Violated by U.S. Agency Engineers Through Covert Private Contracting
Covert negotiation of private contracts while serving as faithful agents of U.S. Agency
The U.S. Agency engineers violated their faithful agent obligation to their public employer by covertly negotiating private contracts for work related to their public duties, using their employer's resources, relationships, and work product to advance competing private interests without disclosure or consent.
The faithful agent obligation requires undivided loyalty and good faith in executing assigned work; covert private contracting for related work is a paradigmatic breach of this obligation because it converts the employment relationship into a vehicle for private competitive advantage.
Faithful Agent Obligation Within Ethical Limits
Insider Knowledge Competitive Advantage Fairness Assessment
Competition for full design contract for hydroelectric project
The Board identified that the engineers' personal and intimate knowledge of the project from preliminary design work, and their personal acquaintance with the owner's representatives, gave them 'many distinct advantages' over competing firms — and framed the central ethical question as whether these advantages were used unfairly through information withholding, misrepresentation of insider knowledge importance, or artificially low pricing
The principle requires distinguishing between legitimate competitive advantage (knowledge and relationships permissibly gained) and unfair exploitation (withholding, misrepresentation, or predatory pricing); the Board found the specific unfair uses unproven but held that the possibility of their occurrence raises ethical concern
NSPE Policy 52 Mobility Right Constraint Invocation
Post-departure competitive engagement for hydroelectric project full design
Active-Employment Private Contract Negotiation Prohibition
NSPE Professional Policy No. 52 is cited to establish that engineer mobility rights are conditioned on consistency with the Canons of Ethics regarding relations with clients and employers, and that unreasonable contractual limitations on mobility are disfavored — but the right itself is bounded by ethical obligations
The principle establishes that freedom of movement is not absolute; it is bounded by the requirement that the seeking and acceptance of new employment be consistent with the Canons, meaning that the manner of competition following departure remains subject to ethical scrutiny
NSPE has formally recognized that right in Professional Policy No. 52 which says: 'It is the stated policy of the Society that an individual professional engineer has the right to seek and accept other employment in his field, provided the seeking and acceptance of such other employment is consistent with the Canons of Ethics as it pertains to relations with clients and employers. NSPE looks with disfavor on any provisions in contracts, or conditions of employment, which unreasonably limit this right.'
Section 19 Collective Reputation Protection — Private Consulting Firm Joint Venture Partner
The private consulting firm knowingly entered into a cooperative arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers to jointly compete for the hydroelectric project design contract, with awareness that the joint venture's competitive positioning was structurally dependent on the engineers' insider knowledge and relationships.
Section 19 Profession Collective Reputation Protection Procurement Conduct Obligation
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated under Section 19 of the NSPE Canons of Ethics to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and misunderstanding by refraining from entering into a joint venture arrangement that structurally depended on the insider advantages of the former U.S. Agency engineers, thereby creating a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the competitive enterprise and bringing the profession into potential disrepute.
From the formation of the joint venture through the contract award
the possibility of the existence of one or more of these facets raises a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise.
The engineers negotiated with at least two engineering firms and concluded a cooperative arrangement while still employed by the U.S. Agency, without disclosing these negotiations to their employer.
Concurrent Employment Negotiation Conflict Avoidance Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from negotiating and concluding private employment arrangements with consulting firms for work on the hydroelectric project while still holding their public agency positions, and to disclose any such employment discussions to their public employer immediately upon their initiation.
From the initiation of private negotiations through formal resignation from U.S. Agency employment
Appearance of Unfair Insider Advantage Without Proven Violation
From the point of private contract award through the Board's ethical review
Ethical Appearance Conflict Without Demonstrated Actual Conflict State
The enterprise of the resigning engineers forming a private firm to execute the project they designed in public service
Not terminated; the appearance persists absent a full evidentiary clearing
Structural combination of insider knowledge, owner relationships, and immediate private competition for the same project, creating visible appearance of unfair advantage even without confirmed misuse
Government-Designed Project Private Execution Transition
From initiation of private negotiations through contract execution with foreign government
The structural situation created when the authors of the government's foundational project plans immediately transition to private contractors executing those same plans
Engineers who authored the basic plans in public capacity negotiated and concluded a private contract to execute the same project immediately upon resignation
The private firm structured its competitive positioning around the former U.S. Agency engineers' insider knowledge and relationships, gaining a structural advantage over other competing firms who lacked equivalent access.
AE Firm Incumbent Advantage Non-Exploitation Obligation
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated to refrain from exploiting the incumbent advantage created by its joint venture arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers, including refraining from using those engineers' insider knowledge of the basic plans and personal acquaintance with the project owner to gain preferential access to the hydroelectric project design contract.
Throughout the proposal preparation and contract negotiation process for the hydroelectric project
Private Firm Incumbent Advantage Non-Exploitation — Consulting Firm Hydroelectric Joint Venture
The private consulting firm entered into a cooperative arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers, with full awareness that the joint venture's competitive positioning was structurally dependent on the engineers' insider advantages rather than on merit-based qualifications alone.
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated to refrain from exploiting the incumbent advantage created by its joint venture with the former U.S. Agency engineers — including refraining from using the engineers' insider knowledge, personal relationships with the project owner, and access to publicly-funded preliminary design work product — to gain preferential access to the hydroelectric project design contract.
From the formation of the joint venture through the contract award for the hydroelectric project design
Public Agency Work Product Non-Exploitation Principle Violated by U.S. Agency Engineers
Use of basic plan preparation and project report work as springboard for private design and supervision contract
Specialized Knowledge Constraint on Post-Departure Competition
The U.S. Agency engineers converted the basic plans they had prepared in their public capacity — publicly-funded technical work product — into a private competitive advantage by using their intimate knowledge of those plans, and their personal acquaintance with the project owner's representatives, to position themselves and their private joint venture as the preferred contractor for the full design and supervision work.
The engineers' value to the joint venture derived directly from their public work product; the private consulting firm negotiated with them specifically because of that insider knowledge, confirming that the public work product was the vehicle for the private competitive advantage.
Public Agency Work Product Non-Exploitation for Private Competitive Advantage Principle
The hydroelectric project was financed in part by a World Bank loan and involved an international procurement process; the engineers' use of insider knowledge and relationships derived from their public agency role distorted the fairness of that international competitive process.
International Engineering Procurement Competitive Integrity Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to pursue the hydroelectric project design contract exclusively through merit-based, qualification-based, and honest competitive means — refraining from leveraging insider knowledge of publicly-funded basic plans and personal relationships with the foreign government agency's representatives to gain structural competitive advantage in the international procurement process.
Throughout the proposal and contract negotiation process with the foreign government
Engineer Mobility Right Invoked for U.S. Agency Engineers
Resignation from federal agency and formation of joint venture with private consulting firm
The Board affirmed the basic right of the U.S. Agency engineers to resign from their federal positions and enter private practice or accept other employment, recognizing this as an axiomatic freedom of American citizens and a formally recognized NSPE policy right
In this context, the right of engineer mobility is treated as foundational and non-contestable — the ethical analysis does not challenge the departure itself but focuses exclusively on the manner in which the departure and subsequent competitive conduct were executed
Incumbent Advantage Prohibition Violated by Private Consulting Firm
Formation of joint venture with former U.S. Agency engineers to compete for hydroelectric project design contract
The private consulting engineering firm structured its competitive positioning by entering into a cooperative arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers specifically to leverage their insider knowledge of and relationships with the foreign government's project — constituting the paradigm case of recruiting former officials to exploit their insider position.
The private firm's knowing participation in the joint venture, with awareness that the former agency engineers' value to the arrangement derived from their insider public role, makes the firm independently responsible for the competitive distortion.
Incumbent Advantage Prohibition in Public Procurement
Post-Public-Service Conflict Avoidance Violated by U.S. Agency Engineers
Acceptance of private contract with foreign government for project on which public role was held
The U.S. Agency engineers, having held public positions with direct responsibility for the basic plans of the hydroelectric project, accepted private contracts with the foreign government for the same project in circumstances where their prior public relationship created a reality of improper advantage and betrayal of public trust.
The principle applies even where the prior public employer (U.S. Agency) and the new private client (foreign government) are different entities, because the public role gave the engineers privileged access to the project that created an improper competitive advantage in the private engagement.
Post-Public-Service Conflict Avoidance — U.S. Agency Engineers Hydroelectric Full Design Contract
Engineers who prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project in their public agency capacity resigned and immediately competed for the full design contract through a private joint venture, without a cooling-off period or documented recusal safeguards.
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated, upon transitioning from their federal agency roles, to recuse themselves from competitive engagement for the hydroelectric project full design contract — or at minimum to establish and disclose adequate conflict-of-interest safeguards — given that they had held public positions with direct responsibility for the basic plans of that same project.
the personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project and the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages
Immediately following resignation from the U.S. federal agency through the contract award
The private consulting firm concluded a cooperative arrangement with the former U.S. Agency engineers — who had prepared the basic plans while still employed — to jointly execute the hydroelectric project design, with full awareness of the engineers' prior public agency role.
Private Firm Insider-Advantage Joint Venture Non-Participation Obligation
The private consulting engineering firm was obligated to refrain from knowingly entering into a cooperative joint venture arrangement with the U.S. Agency engineers, given that the firm knew or reasonably should have known that the engineers' competitive positioning was structurally dependent on insider knowledge of the publicly-funded basic plans and personal relationships with the project owner derived from their public agency employment.
At the point of concluding the cooperative arrangement with the U.S. Agency engineers
Section 19 Collective Reputation Protection Invocation
Joint venture procurement arrangement for hydroelectric project full design contract
The Board invoked NSPE Canon Section 19 — the obligation to protect the engineering profession collectively and individually from misrepresentation and misunderstanding — as the applicable provision when specific violations under other sections could not be established, recognizing that the insider-advantage procurement arrangement created a cloud of doubt about the purity of the competitive process that implicated collective professional reputation
The collective reputation protection obligation functions as a residual ethical provision that captures conduct which, while not conclusively proven to violate specific code provisions, creates public doubt about the integrity of engineering procurement and thereby harms the profession as a whole
Section 19 Collective Reputation Protection — U.S. Agency Engineers Hydroelectric Procurement
The Board invoked Section 19 of the Canons of Ethics as the applicable provision under which the cloud-of-doubt raised by the engineers' insider-advantage competitive conduct could be evaluated, even in the absence of proven specific violations.
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated under Section 19 of the NSPE Canons of Ethics to endeavor to protect the engineering profession collectively and individually from misrepresentation and misunderstanding by ensuring that their competitive procurement conduct — involving the use of insider knowledge, public work product, and personal relationships gained during public agency employment — did not create circumstances susceptible to characterization as misrepresentation or exploitation of public trust, even where specific violations could not be proven.
From the point of competitive engagement through the contract award for the hydroelectric project design
The engineers resigned from the U.S. Agency and immediately entered into contract with the foreign government through their joint venture, with no cooling-off period between their public role and their private engagement on the same project.
Revolving Door Employment Acceptance Integrity Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from accepting private employment — through joint venture or otherwise — on the hydroelectric project without ensuring that a sufficient cooling-off period had elapsed and that adequate conflict-of-interest safeguards had been established, given that they had held public positions with direct responsibility for the basic plans of that same project.
At the point of departure from U.S. Agency employment and acceptance of private contract
Project Insider Knowledge Competitive Advantage Active
From the point of private firm formation through contract award and execution
Competing firms excluded from equivalent knowledge
The personal and intimate knowledge of the project which the employees gained from their work on the preliminary design of the project and the acquaintance they made with the representatives of the owner of the project gave them many distinct advantages over any other firms who may have considered the offering of their services to the owner
Engineers who worked on preliminary design and formed personal acquaintance with owner representatives
Not terminated; persists through the competitive and execution phases
Engineers' prior work on preliminary design of the project in public-sector capacity, giving them intimate project knowledge and owner relationships
The engineers concluded negotiations with a private consulting firm and formed a corporation for a joint venture while still employed by the U.S. Agency that had prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project; they resigned only at or about the time the negotiations with the foreign government were concluded.
Active-Employment Private Contract Conclusion Prohibition Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to refrain from concluding binding private contracts, forming a joint venture corporation, and finalizing cooperative arrangements with a private consulting firm for the hydroelectric project design work while they remained employed by the U.S. Agency.
Throughout the period of active employment with the U.S. Agency, until formal resignation
Negotiations were finally concluded between this group and a firm of consulting engineers for a cooperative project to execute the work, and the group of employees formed a corporation to be a part of a joint venture to design the hydroelectric project
US Agency Engineers Active Private Negotiation While Employed
From initiation of negotiations with private firms through resignation from U.S. Agency
Active Client Solicitation During Continued Employment State
Group of U.S. Agency engineers negotiating with private consulting firms while still employed by the U.S. Agency
Engineers' resignation from U.S. Agency positions
Engineers responsible for basic plans began negotiating with at least two private engineering firms for cooperative project execution
US Agency Engineers Revolving Door Transition
From resignation from U.S. Agency through execution of private contract with foreign government
Group of U.S. Agency engineers who resigned and immediately contracted with the foreign government on the same project
Engineers resigned from U.S. Agency at or about the time negotiations with the foreign government were concluded, and shortly thereafter entered into contract
Active-Employment Private Contract Negotiation Prohibition Violated by U.S. Agency Engineers
Conclusion of cooperative arrangement and corporate formation while still employed by U.S. Agency
The U.S. Agency engineers concluded binding negotiations with a private consulting firm and formed a corporation for a joint venture — all while still employed by the U.S. Agency — constituting the core violation of the prohibition on concluding private contracts during active public employment on the same project.
{'project_role': 'Joint venture partner for hydroelectric project design and construction supervision', 'arrangement': "Cooperative project execution with former government engineers' corporation"}
A private consulting engineering firm that negotiated and concluded a cooperative arrangement with the group of U.S. Agency engineers to jointly execute the design and construction supervision of the hydroelectric project for the foreign government.
{'type': 'client', 'target': 'Foreign Government Agency'}
{'type': 'joint_venture_partner', 'target': 'U.S. Agency Engineers Group'}
Joint Venture Firm Partnering with Former Government Insiders
The engineers covertly negotiated private arrangements and formed a corporation for joint venture work on the same project for which they were responsible in their public capacity, without disclosing these activities to their employer.
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to act as faithful agents and trustees of their public employer — the U.S. Agency — by refraining from covertly negotiating private contracts for work related to the hydroelectric project while still employed, and by disclosing any such negotiations to their employer.
Throughout the period of active employment with the U.S. Agency
Revolving Door Integrity Violation by U.S. Agency Engineers
Transition from U.S. Agency employment to private joint venture for the same hydroelectric project
The U.S. Agency engineers transitioned from their public agency role — in which they had prepared the basic plans and had personal acquaintance with the foreign government's representatives — to a private joint venture specifically structured to execute the same project, exploiting their insider relationships and privileged technical position to benefit their new private enterprise.
The revolving door principle applies with particular force here because the engineers did not merely transition to a private firm in the same field — they transitioned to a private entity formed specifically to execute the project on which they held insider public roles, maximizing the exploitation of their prior public position.
Insider Procurement Advantage Cloud-of-Doubt Avoidance — U.S. Agency Engineers Hydroelectric Project
Former U.S. Agency engineers who possessed personal and intimate knowledge of the hydroelectric project from preliminary design work, and personal acquaintance with the project owner's representatives, competed for the full design contract through a joint venture with a private consulting firm.
Insider Procurement Advantage Cloud-of-Doubt Appearance Avoidance Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to structure their competitive engagement for the hydroelectric project design contract in a manner that did not raise a cloud of doubt as to the purity of the enterprise — specifically by refraining from withholding information from competitors, misrepresenting the value of their insider knowledge to the project owner, or submitting an artificially low price — even though specific improper acts were not proven, because the structural circumstances of their insider advantage created the possibility of such exploitation.
During the competitive proposal and contract negotiation phase for the hydroelectric project full design contract
The crucial question is, therefore, 'Were these advantages used unfairly?' This could have been accomplished by withholding certain information from the competitors, by misrepresentation to the owner of the importance of their inside information, or by quoting a price which was lower than could be considered proper for the securing of data for and the design of the project.
{'employer': 'U.S. Federal Agency (responsible for basic plans)', 'specialty': 'Hydroelectric project design and construction supervision', 'action': 'Negotiated private contracts while still employed; formed corporation; resigned upon contract conclusion'}
Group of engineers employed by the U.S. federal agency that prepared the basic plans for the hydroelectric project; while still employed, they negotiated with private consulting firms and with the foreign government to secure a private contract to design and supervise the same project, then resigned and formed a corporation to execute the joint venture contract.
{'type': 'employer', 'target': 'U.S. Federal Agency'}
{'type': 'joint_venture_partner', 'target': 'Private Consulting Engineering Firm'}
Insider-Knowledge-Exploiting Departing Government Engineer
NSPE Policy 52 Mobility Right Ethics Conditioned Exercise — U.S. Agency Engineers
Group of U.S. federal agency engineers who prepared basic plans for a hydroelectric project, then resigned and formed a joint venture with a private consulting firm to compete for the full design contract for the same project.
Engineer Mobility Right Ethics-Conditioned Exercise Obligation
The U.S. Agency engineers were obligated to exercise their fundamental right to resign and enter private practice in a manner fully consistent with the Canons of Ethics — including refraining from exploiting insider knowledge of the hydroelectric project, public work product prepared in their agency capacity, and personal acquaintance with the project owner's representatives — as a condition of the mobility right affirmed by NSPE Professional Policy No. 52.
From the point of resignation through the competitive submission and contract award for the hydroelectric project design