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DSI
Communication & Representation

Conflicts of Interest and Public Disclosure

What counts as material, how to write a disclosure entry a delegator can actually use, how to choose between disclosure, abstention and recusal, and how to keep the record honest as circumstances change.

FoundationReading + exercise6 h 47 min to 8 h 30 min of workv1.2.0 · effective Aug 9, 2026
Course catalogue

Lesson 1 of 526 min read

What counts as material

Six families of interest - financial, employment, relationship, authorship, reputational and future - tested against a specific decision using the reasonable-delegator information test.

This lesson is published without written sections yet.

Applied activity

Six-family interest sweep

Take one governance action you have voted on, or one you expect to face, and sweep all six families against it: financial, employment, relationship, authorship, reputational and future. For each family write either a specific interest or an explicit nil. For every interest recorded, classify it as actual, apparent or potential, then apply the reasonable-delegator information test in one sentence: would someone who delegated to you want to know this before reading your rationale on this action, and why. Mark the two hardest calls and say what makes them hard. Do not decide yet what response is appropriate - that is the third lesson. Reach no conclusion about the action itself.

Deliverable: A six-family sweep against one action, each interest classified actual, apparent or potential, each with a one-sentence application of the delegator test, and two borderline cases identified. · about 40 minutes

Teach it back

Explain what counts as a conflict of interest, in your own words, to a delegator who has never heard the term.

Write it for a delegator who has never heard of it.

  • Defines a conflict of interest as a relationship between an interest and a specific decision, not a permanent label on a person.
  • Names more than just financial interests, and explains why the quieter ones (relationships, past authorship, public positions) matter just as much.
  • States the reasonable-delegator test in plain words: would someone who trusted you with their vote want to know this before reading your reasoning?
  • Makes clear that disclosing an interest is not an admission of wrongdoing and does not by itself mean stepping back from the vote.

Sign in to write your explanation and see the model answer afterwards.

Key takeaways

The short version of this lesson. Read these first when you come back to revise.

  1. A conflict is a relationship between an interest and a specific decision, not a permanent label on a person.
  2. Financial interests are the easiest to spot and the least likely to be the ones that matter.
  3. Apparent conflicts need disclosing even when nothing improper has happened or will happen.
  4. The test is what a reasonable delegator would want to know before reading your rationale - not what you are comfortable sharing.

Sources

  • DRep Standards Institute Standards of Practice

    DRep Standards Institute

    The Institute process standards referenced by the classification lab.

  • Managing Conflict of Interest in the Public Service: OECD Guidelines and Country Experiences(opens in a new tab)

    OECD

    Definitions of actual, apparent and potential conflict of interest, and the disclose/abstain/recuse spectrum. Written for public officials, not Cardano representatives.

  • DRep Standards Institute conflict disclosure guidance

    DRep Standards Institute

    The Institute's disclosure template and guidance, published on this site.