Independence and conflicts
An industry body is only useful if its findings cannot be bought and its meetings cannot be used to coordinate. The Global Risks Alliance (GRA), a nonprofit corporation registered in Nevada, United States, operating as a business league for the financial services industry, brings competitors together on shared evidence and methods, so its programmes are designed around safeguards for both risks: competition safeguards that keep cooperation precompetitive, and independence safeguards that keep sponsors and members away from findings. This page sets out that design, which the About GRA page summarises.
- 01In briefThe short answer
- 02Competition safeguardsCompetitors can cooperate on evidence. Never on markets
- 03Independence safeguardsNo one can buy a finding
- 04NeutralityGRA favours no firm, product or counterparty
- 05Key termsTerms used on this page
- 06Public officialsSupervisors take part in their own capacity
GRA · Institution · service level R0
The short answer.
Independence and conflicts at GRA are the safeguards that let competitors cooperate on shared evidence and methods without coordinating markets or buying findings. GRA favours no firm, product or counterparty, no sponsor controls research, and supervisors take part only in their official capacity, never as members.
Mandate to authority.
Fig.How the platform is governed, from its mandate to the authorities who decide. Design, not a record.
Financial centres and urban exposure in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The cities where people, assets and financial activity concentrate, shown for Latin America and the Caribbean as an example geography for this subject.
Competitors can cooperate on evidence. Never on markets.
- No discussion of prices, premiums, rates, fees, wages, bids, or underwriting, lending or coverage terms offered to customers.
- No allocation of markets, customers or territories, no collective refusal to deal, and no collective commitment on which sectors, firms or projects to finance, insure or invest in.
- No exchange of a member's confidential or competitively sensitive information; research data is aggregated so that no firm can be identified.
- Written agendas, recorded minutes, and a meeting stopped if it strays; concerns to compliance@globalriskalliance.com.
These safeguards are the design of GRA programmes, set out in a written competition policy that counsel reviews before membership opens.
No one can buy a finding.
| Safeguard | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sponsors cannot approve publication | No sponsor or member may approve, delay or suppress a publication, or change its evidence |
| Funding grants no ownership | Paying for work does not transfer ownership of its findings or data |
| Conflicts declared | Contributors and reviewers declare interests; a declared conflict leads to recusal where it bears on a decision |
| Funding disclosed | The source of funding for a piece of work is published with it |
| Rights retained | Participants keep their background rights; membership transfers none |
These are design commitments, set out in written policies before the work they govern opens.
GRA favours no firm, product or counterparty.
No firm is preferred
GRA recommends no investment, insurer or lender, and introduces no counterparty to anyone.
Equal treatment of applicants
Membership criteria are designed to be objective, published with the membership terms and applied equally to every applicant.
No restriction on members
Participation is designed never to restrict a member's independent commercial decisions, and no member must adopt any method GRA publishes.
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Antitrust safeguards | The written rules, agendas, minutes and counsel review that keep competitors in a trade association from exchanging competitively sensitive information or coordinating prices, output or customers. |
| Conflict of interest | A situation in which financial, professional or personal interests could compromise, or appear to compromise, judgement in research or review. |
| Sponsor neutrality | The principle that a campaign's funder does not control its findings, claims or editorial decisions. |
| Regulatory capture | The situation in which a regulator comes to serve the interests of those it regulates rather than the public. |
Supervisors take part in their own capacity.
Supervisors and other public officials are not members of GRA. They may take part in open GRA work only in their official capacity and under their own institution's rules, and no participant gains privileged access to any authority. The detailed rules are on Conflicts, sponsors and neutrality and Antitrust and competition.
Questions and answers.
Does a sponsor see findings before publication?
What should I do if a GRA meeting strays into prices or customers?
Is the competition policy already adopted?
Who funds GRA?
Around GRA.
Start with an enquiry.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.