Conflicts of interest and competing clients
By Joel Andren · Published by PressFriendly, a PR agency · Reviewed August 21, 2026 · Editorial standards · 3 of 6 in this section
A PR agency conflict exists when the provider's duties, incentives, access, capacity, or relationships could impair its work or put client information at risk. Competitors, financial interests, referral fees, publisher payments, personal relationships, subcontractors, and former-client obligations can create conflicts.
The PRSA Code of Ethics is voluntary for PRSA members. It calls for avoiding real, potential, or perceived conflicts and promptly disclosing them. The startup still needs acceptance criteria, information controls, and remedies.
Classify the conflict before choosing protection
Map the situations that could affect the engagement:
- Direct competition. The agency serves a company pursuing the same customers with a substitutable product.
- Adjacent competition. Companies overlap by category, market, geography, talent, investor, policy position, or launch timing.
- Information risk. Team members or systems could expose product plans, customer data, pricing, strategy, vulnerabilities, or unpublished news.
- Competing duties. Two clients need urgent counsel, spokesperson access, event support, or outreach during the same period.
- Commercial interest. The agency receives a publisher payment, referral fee, equity, commission, or other benefit that could influence its advice.
- Personnel conflict. An employee, contractor, or adviser has a personal, financial, or former-client interest relevant to the work.
Contract protections should address service, judgment, capacity, information, and incentives. A reporter decides whether and how to engage, so an agency cannot grant a startup ownership of that relationship or editorial access.
Diligence should test the agency's conflict system
Ask the agency to describe:
- how it defines a competitor and screens new work;
- when it discloses a potential conflict;
- who decides whether the conflict can be accepted;
- how it separates teams, files, credentials, meetings, vendors, and AI systems;
- whether staff can move between competing accounts;
- how it handles simultaneous announcements or incidents;
- which subcontractors and partners receive confidential information;
- what happens when a conflict appears after signing or after a client, market, or team changes.
Request enough client and recent-work disclosure to evaluate the risk. When the agency cannot reveal a confidential relationship, require it to perform the agreed screen and attest to the result. References can test the process.
A nondisclosure agreement covers only part of the problem. Judgment, divided loyalty, and scarce capacity can remain even when information stays confidential.
The startup's risk owner makes the acceptance decision
The provider owns screening, disclosure, information separation, staffing, and agreed controls. The startup's legal or communications risk owner decides whether the conflict is prohibited or acceptable with conditions. Procurement should not accept communication risk without that owner's approval.
The startup's account and asset owners authorize access. The provider enforces team permissions, subcontractor access, retention, and deletion. Record the decision, conditions, approver, review date, and remedy.
Contract terms should be specific enough to operate
| Term | Decision to define |
|---|---|
| Restricted category | Products, customers, use cases, and geographies included |
| Named competitors | Current companies that require consent or are prohibited |
| Disclosure trigger | When and how the agency must notify the company |
| Consent process | Who can approve, conditions, review date, and documentation |
| Information controls | Team separation, systems, subcontractors, retention, and deletion |
| Priority rules | How simultaneous deadlines and incidents are staffed |
| Remedy | Reassignment, additional controls, fee change, or termination rights |
Broad exclusivity can reduce the agency pool or increase cost. Narrow protection may miss a new entrant or acquisition. Use a defined category, a named list where useful, and an update process. Have qualified counsel review local-law effects.
End the evaluation if the agency conceals a known material conflict, misrepresents its screening result, shares another client's confidential information, or refuses to describe basic controls. Use the agency vetting scorecard to compare manageable trade-offs and the red-flags guide for integrity failures.