More on the 'Not Even a Hint' Standard

OK, here's a real practical example of the right way and wrong way to avoid the appearance of ethical conflicts of interest. First the right way, in the form of a memo circulated by my company's HR department at the beginning of the holiday season last month....

Dear Colleagues:

We should all be proud to work for a company that upholds the highest ethical standards as expressed in our corporate vision, values and behaviors. With the holiday season quickly approaching, now is a good time to remind you about the company’s policy regarding gifts and gratuities.

Employees and members of their immediate families may not accept gifts over $10 in value from our suppliers or potential suppliers. This policy goes beyond the letter of the law to avoid even the appearance of improper conduct in our business dealings. The company also prohibits giving anything of value to officials or employees of the U.S. government, however innocent the intention. The company prefers that employees avoid giving or receiving even gifts of nominal value.

Should you receive a gift, please send it back unless special circumstances make the return impractical. For example, a perishable gift of small value may be shared with co-workers. You also may contact the sector Ethics Office to donate it to the company’s Holiday Giving Program, where it can benefit a community agency. Whether you return the gift or not, please send a note indicating our company's policy. For example:

Thank you for your recent gift. While I appreciate the good intention of your gesture, it is my company's policy that employees not accept gifts from our suppliers.

I am, therefore, returning your holiday gift. Thank you for your good will, and best wishes for the holidays.

If you are not returning the gift, the second paragraph above might be changed to read:

Since it would be impractical to return your gift, I have made it available to our company Holiday Giving Program, which will donate it to a community service agency. Thank you for your good will, and best wishes for the holidays.

For further information on gifts and gratuities...

Now the wrong way, as documented in this post from the Project on Goverment Oversight...

Deploying his deep pockets, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) throws the annual holiday party for his committee staff. Some committees in Congress have their staff members cover the costs of their holiday party.

But House Government “Reform” Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) has come up a more creative arrangement. Lobbyists and defense contractors threw the annual holiday party for the Committee which, coincidentally, oversees federal agency contracting. Here's the invite.

Who needs Santa Claus when contractors have Chairman Tom Davis to thank for opening up the government’s coffers! By our calculation following the House gift rules, each of the nine sponsors could spend up to $450 per staff or member of Congress. That’s quite a party!!!

The December 15, 2005 bash was held in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building and was sponsored by:

-- McGuire Woods Consulting which employs former Tom Davis staffer Barnaby Harkins. Harkins worked for Davis for four years, “specifically focused on education, federal procurement and appropriations.” Harkins lobbies for one of the largest foreign-owned defense contractors, shipping giant Maersk. In addition, one of the firm's clients is defense contractor Northrup Grumman Mission Systems.

-- Patton Boggs, which, in 2005, retained Peter Sirh, the former Staff Director for Davis’ House Government Reform Committee and former Chief of Staff to Davis. Sirh helped Patton Boggs rake in a hefty $260,000 lobbying fee from MCI in the first six months of 2005, in part to “Assist MCI with contract issues relating to specific government contracts…” MCI is competing for a $20 billion telecommunications contract which has been a pet project of Tom Davis. Committee staff members strenuously deny that Davis has a hand in choosing who gets the contract but a recent article suggested that contractors think otherwise.

Sirh’s access to Tom Davis was a hot commodity for Patton Boggs. While there, Sirh also lobbied for:

* the DC government ($140,000 in fees in Jan-June, 2005)
* Defense contractor ADS ($20,000 in fees from Jan-June, 2005)
* Defense contractor DDL Omni Engineering ($20,000 in fees from Jan-June 2005)
* PriceWaterhouseCoopers ($100,000 in fees from Jan-June 2005)

-- Innovative Defense Strategies, where Peter Sirh also worked in 2005, also sponsored the party. It’s an awfully strange coincidence that the firm gave a $5,000 political contribution to Tom Davis’ wife in 2003, although Jeanmarie Devolites and Tom weren’t married at that point.

--PodestaMatton which lobbied on behalf of the government’s #1 defense contractor, behemoth Lockheed Martin ($140,000 in fees from Jan-June 2005) as well as the Native American Contractors Association ($100,000 in fees from Jan-June, 2005). Hey, whatever happened to the Committee’s investigation into abuses in Native American contracting?

--Defense contractor BearingPoint which reported a whopping $500,000 in lobbying expenses in 2005 (that’s a lot of Christmas parties!) including on “Govt. Contracting issues.” BearingPoint (previously KPMG) has supported Tom Davis’ annual legislative goody bag of contractor favors (known in shorthand as SARA and ASIA), some provisions of which he has succeeded in attaching to Defense Authorization bills.

--Holland and Knight which openly brags about joining in a “drafting summit… with members of industry” held by Davis’ staff to draft that contractor legislation.

--Defense contractor General Dynamics, which opened a production facility in Tom Davis’ district a few years back. At the time, Davis bragged of playing “a pivotal role in bringing the project to Northern Virginia.”

Must have been one heck of a party.