Conflicts of interest and competing clients
By Joel Andren · Published by PressFriendly, a PR agency · Reviewed July 15, 2026 · 5 of 8 in this section
A conflict exists when an agency's duties, incentives, access, or relationships could impair its judgment or expose one client's information to another. A competing client is one possible conflict. Others include financial interests, referral fees, personal relationships, publisher payments, subcontractor work, and obligations to a former client.
The PRSA Code of Ethics calls for avoiding real, potential, or perceived conflicts and disclosing circumstances that could compromise judgment. Use disclosure, informed consent, access controls, and exit rights to manage conflicts that the company is willing to accept.
Define the conflict before negotiating 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. The companies overlap by category, market, geography, talent, investor, policy position, or launch timing.
- Confidential information. Team members or systems could expose product plans, customer data, pricing, strategy, vulnerabilities, or unpublished news.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 prior-client interest relevant to the work.
Do not treat access to a reporter as property that one client can reserve. The operational question is whether the agency can serve each client competently, protect information, make fair recommendations, and explain relevant incentives.
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, tools, 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.
Review the current client roster and relevant recent work, then ask references how the process operated in practice. A nondisclosure agreement does not replace a conflict process because the risk can involve judgment and capacity as well as disclosure.
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, and required documentation |
| Information controls | Team separation, system access, 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 available agency pool or increase cost. Narrow protection may miss a new market entrant. Use a defined category, a named list where useful, and a process for updating both. Have qualified counsel review the language and the effect of local law.
End the evaluation if the agency conceals a known material conflict, misrepresents its client roster, 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.