How does Five Blocks handle conflicts of interest between clients?
Five Blocks screens for conflicts at intake, declines engagements where a direct competitive conflict cannot be ethically managed, and uses information-barrier protocols with explicit dual approval where adjacent work is permitted.
Five Blocks runs a conflict-management process that starts at intake and continues throughout each engagement. At intake, we screen every prospective client against the active client list to identify any direct competitive overlap or other conflict pattern before proceeding.
How a potential conflict is resolved
What happens next depends on whether the overlap is direct or adjacent:
- Direct conflict → decline. Where a true head-to-head conflict exists, two firms competing for the same investor capital, two executives competing for the same board seat, two companies in active head-to-head litigation, we typically decline the new engagement.
- Adjacent overlap → information barriers + dual approval. Where the overlap is adjacent rather than direct (two firms in the same broad sector but with different positioning, two professionals in the same field but with different client bases), we may proceed under information-barrier protocols with explicit approval from both clients.
What an information barrier involves
- Named-team-only access, so client information is walled to the specific people working the account.
- Separate account leadership where appropriate, so the two engagements are run independently.
- Structured monitoring to ensure no information flows across the two engagements.
Ongoing review
The screen is not a one-time gate. We continue to monitor for conflicts across the life of each engagement, because new client relationships and changing client circumstances can create overlap that did not exist at intake. The system protects clients and is a discipline we are willing to lose business over.
Last reviewed: 19/05/2026
