How does Five Blocks handle conflicts of interest between clients?

The conflict-management process runs at intake and continues throughout each engagement. At intake, we run the prospective client against the active client list to identify any direct competitive overlap or other conflict pattern. Where a direct 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. 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 with information-barrier protocols and explicit approval from both clients. Information barriers include named-team-only access, separate account leadership where appropriate, and structured monitoring to ensure no cross-engagement information flows. The system protects clients and is a discipline we are willing to lose business over.