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DSI
Worksheet

Conflict Handling & Recusal Decision Tree

A structured walk through financial, professional, and personal interests that helps you reach a documented, defensible position on disclosure or recusal.

Type
Worksheet
Difficulty
foundational
Time
30 min
Version
v1.0.0
Updated
8/9/2026
ethicstransparencyprocess

What this helps you do

Conflicts of interest are normal in a small ecosystem where the people best equipped to review work are often connected to it. What damages trust is not the existence of a conflict but the discovery of an undisclosed one.

This decision tree walks through the categories of interest that arise for a DRep: financial holdings, professional relationships, employment, advisory roles, direct compensation, family and personal relationships, and material indirect interests. For each it asks about materiality, direction, and whether a reasonable observer aware of the facts would see the interest as capable of influencing your judgement. It ends with a documented position and reasoning. It does not compute an answer for you, and it is not legal advice.

When to use this

  • An action involves a party you have any relationship with, however distant.
  • You are unsure whether an interest is material enough to disclose.
  • You are updating your disclosures on a schedule.
  • Someone has raised a question about your independence and you want a documented answer.

When NOT to use this

  • You need a legal opinion on fiduciary duty or liability. Consult a qualified professional.
  • You want confirmation that you can vote. This produces reasoning, not permission.
  • You are assessing another person's conflict. Ask them; this is a first-person tool.

What you'll need

  • The governance action and the parties who would benefit from it
  • Your current disclosures
  • An honest list of your holdings, roles, and relationships relevant to those parties
  • Any applicable code of conduct or organisational policy you have agreed to

Estimated completion time

30 minutes

Working time for one governance action, assuming the inputs listed here are already to hand.

How to use it

  1. 1Identify every party who would materially benefit from the action, including subcontractors and named partners, not only the submitter.
  2. 2Work through each interest category in turn and answer even where the answer is obviously none. The record matters.
  3. 3For each interest found, record its nature, its size or significance, and when it arose.
  4. 4Apply the materiality test: would a reasonable observer, knowing this fact, consider it capable of influencing your judgement?
  5. 5Apply the direction test: does the interest align with a particular outcome of this action, and which one?
  6. 6Apply the discovery test: if this were discovered later rather than disclosed now, would it damage trust?
  7. 7Consider whether an interest that is individually small becomes material when combined with others.
  8. 8Choose one outcome: no material conflict identified, disclosure appropriate, seek additional guidance, or recusal may be appropriate.
  9. 9Write the reasoning in one paragraph. The reasoning is what makes the outcome credible.
  10. 10Record what you actually did and where the disclosure was published.
  11. 11Set a review date, because relationships and holdings change while your disclosure does not.

The tool

Full worksheet - v1.0.0

The action and the parties

  • Action title and identifier
  • Submitter
  • Named delivery partners and subcontractors
  • Organisations that would receive funds
  • Individuals who would receive compensation
  • Parties whose competitive position would change
  • Anyone you know personally among the above

Interest categories

  • Financial: holdings in a token, equity, or fund that would move with the outcome
  • Professional: current or recent working relationships with any party
  • Employment: current or former employer among the parties, and how recently
  • Advisory: board, advisory, or governance roles with any party
  • Direct compensation: payment, grant, contract, or bounty received from any party
  • Family and personal: close relationships with individuals who would benefit
  • Material indirect: an interest in an entity whose position changes as a result
  • Competitive: you or your organisation compete with a party for the same funds
  • Reciprocal: a party has supported, funded, or promoted you

Materiality tests

  • Size of the interest, in absolute terms and relative to your circumstances
  • Recency: current, within twelve months, or historic
  • Would a reasonable observer aware of this fact question your independence
  • Does the interest point toward a particular outcome, and which
  • Would discovery after the fact damage trust more than disclosure now
  • Do several individually small interests combine into a material one
  • Is the interest already publicly known

Outcome and record

  • Outcome: no material conflict identified
  • Outcome: disclosure appropriate
  • Outcome: seek additional guidance
  • Outcome: recusal may be appropriate
  • Reasoning in one paragraph
  • What you actually did
  • Where the disclosure was published, and on what date
  • Whether you voted, abstained, or recused
  • Review date for this assessment
Fictional Example

Invented for illustration. It does not describe a real governance action, proposal, or organisation.

Fictional assessment: tooling grant with a former employer

  • Parties: submitter is a development studio; one named subcontractor is a company the reviewer left 18 months ago.
  • Financial: no holdings in either party. Professional: no current working relationship. Employment: former employee of the subcontractor, ended 18 months ago, no ongoing payments or equity.
  • Personal: two former colleagues would work on the project, one of whom is a friend.
  • Materiality: the employment interest is historic and unpaid, but the friendship is current and the subcontract is a material share of the award.
  • Direction test: the interest points toward approval. Discovery test: a reader finding the friendship afterwards would reasonably question the review.
  • Combination test: individually minor, but employment history plus a current friendship plus a material subcontract combine into something a reasonable observer would want stated.
  • Outcome selected: disclosure appropriate. Reasoning recorded in one paragraph, disclosure published alongside the rationale on the day of the vote, and the reviewer voted.
  • Review date set for twelve months, or sooner if the relationship changes.

How to interpret the result

  • The discovery test does more work than the size test. Small interests that surface later cause more damage than large ones stated openly.
  • Reaching no material conflict identified is a legitimate and common outcome. The record of having asked the question is the point.
  • Recusal may be appropriate is deliberately worded as a judgement rather than a verdict. Nothing here obliges you to abstain.
  • If you find yourself arguing for a lower materiality reading, that argument is itself a signal worth writing down.

Limitations

  • This is not legal advice and does not address fiduciary duty, liability, or any obligation under a specific jurisdiction or organisational policy.
  • The worksheet does not compute an outcome. It structures the question and leaves the judgement with you.
  • It relies entirely on your own honesty about interests, and it cannot detect an interest you do not record.
  • Disclosure norms differ across communities and organisations. Check any policy you have agreed to.
  • Nothing here bears on the direction of your vote, only on transparency and participation.

Sources and methodology

Downloads

  • Markdown export: the complete tool, including metadata, instructions, the template, limitations, sources and version history.

No other file formats are published for this resource. We list a format only when the file exists.

Version and governance

Current version
v1.0.0
Published
Not recorded
Last updated
8/9/2026
Next scheduled review
2/9/2027
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Editorial status
Not yet externally reviewed

No named reviewer is shown because no external review has been completed. Attribution appears only once a verified reviewer has signed off.

Changelog

  • v1.0.0 (2026-08-09) - First published edition.
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