§ 3282.359 Conflict of interest.

(a) All submissions by private organizations shall include a statement that the submitting party is independent in that it does not have any actual or potential conflict of interest and is not affiliated with or influenced or controlled by any producer, supplier, or vendor of products in any manner which might affect its capacity to render reports of findings objectively and without bias. (b) A private organization shall be judged to be free of conflicting affiliation, influence, and control if it demonstrates compliance with all of the following criteria: (1) It has no managerial affiliation with any producer, supplier, or vendor of products for which it performs PIA services, and is not engaged in the sale or promotion of any such product or material; (2) The results of its work do not accrue financial benefits to the organization via stock ownership of any producer, supplier or vendor of the products involved; (3) Its directors and other management personnel and its engineers and inspectors involved in certification activities hold no stock in and receive no stock option or other benefits, financial, or otherwise, from any producer, supplier, or vendor of the product involved, other than compensation under § 3282.202 of this part; (4) The employment security status of its personnel is free of influence or control of any producer, supplier, or vendor, and (5) It does not perform design or quality assurance manual approval services for any manufacturer whose design or manual has been created or prepared in whole or in part by engineers of its organization or engineers of any affiliated organization. (c) All submissions by States shall include a statement that personnel who will be in any way involved in carrying out the State plan or PIA function are free of any conflict of interest except that with respect to members of councils, committees or similar bodies providing advice to the designated agency are not subject to this requirement.