Ethics rabbit holes: Fair Dealing

CFA Level III Ethics
#1

I know that you must not give preferential treatment to discretionary clients over non-discretionary clients. For fee paying clients vs clients that are non-fee paying (or even “free” clients) - is this the same thing? You should essentially treat equally? My guess is that any “client” regardless of whether they pay a “fee” or not, should be treated farily (equally, and when i say equally i mean no preferential treatment). I think that is what it is, just wanted confirmation.

The thing that trips me up here though is that, you can treat different clients differently based on level of service offered (and level of service offered depends on how much you pay).

So if you must treat fee paying and non fee paying clients equally, but you are allowed to treat clients that you offer different levels of services to, differently…the two seem to contradict each other - how would you know in an example which is which?

#2

Generally, it’s the other way round: how much you pay depends on the level of service you want.

They’ll tell you, explicitly, that there are different levels of service, and who is entitled to (i.e., who had paid for) each level. You won’t have to guess.

#3

Thanks Magician - i was hoping so but was not sure

#4

My pleasure.