Hi, just for the pure philosophy: if the allmighty CEO (thus the ultimate compliance authority as well) of an investment firm is a CFA charterholder, then can that firm have rules for ethics and professional standards any less demanding than what CFA compliance in this area would require? If it does, shouldnt the CEO lose his CFA status?
Of course the firm can have more lax standards.
Why should that cause the CEO to lose his charter?
Wait a second. I remember that we must follow the higher standard, CFA’s or local laws. Since a company’s compliance must follow local laws, then if the first is more lax than CFA standards, then, not following CFA standards should be a violation to the code.
CFA Charterholders are people. CFAI does not grant CFA Charters to companies.
Therefore, CFA standards apply only to people, not to companies.
If a firm has standards that are more lax than CFAI, then the person should follow CFAI standards. Whether that person is CEO or janitor is irrelevant.
i think basy is talking about supervision.
i.e. if the firm manages IPOs, the firm has a non-compliant allocation policy. then the CEO is the supervisor… so the firm ends up being compliant.
If CEO is person responsible for making all Company’s decission at entity which is not full complied with ethical standard or this company is non-ethical at all regarding required CFA norms, then CEO cannot fulfill CFA standards of professional ethic conduct.
If f.ex. delivery boy (not CEO) in non ethical company is CFA charterholder, he may be able to retain CFA standards of professional conduct at least for a while in his own domain of daily activity. Just my opinion.
I thought this would be clearer. The company with a cfa CEO can’t have more lax standards because then the CEO should introduce cfa level standards. (Or disassociate from the activity, which the CEO can’t do unless stepping down)
There’s this thing called the ideal. And then there’s this other thing called reality.
More concisely, suppose you were a CFA Charterholder making $20 million a year as a CEO. Would you step down from that if you determined that the firm could not reasonably align with the Standards in some specified timeframe, or would you keep snowballing bankroll?