In a legal context, there are two key ways of defining what actually is meant by the term conflict of interest.

First off, a conflict of interest can arise in circumstances where a person owes a duty in respect of a matter in which they also have a personal interest.

Say a buyer’s agent is advising a client regarding purchasing one of two properties, where the agent also secretly owns one of the properties under consideration.

Second, a conflict of interest might come about where a person who owes a duty to a client to provide a professional service is compromised in performing that duty because simultaneously they owe a similar duty to another client, whose interests conflict with the first client’s.

Say a sport agent who advises some up-and-coming superstar in circumstances where the agent also advises numerous other high-profile athletes, and almost half of a league’s leading coaches. Is it possible to operate in a silo, so that you don’t think what a benefit it might be for the success of your other clients if they were teamed up with the new phenom?

The mere existence of conflicting interests isn’t in itself the root of all ills. Conflicts are a usual barnacle of professional practice. Conflicts must, however, be disclosed and then appropriately controlled. Sports agents, as they are permitted to ply their trade in rugby league especially, are a pertinent case in point.

Influential player agent Isaac Moses.Credit: Ben Symons

The idea seems routinely expressed as fact that Braith Anasta, for example, labours under a conflict of interest baggage. He’s a registered NRL player agent and the general manager of Searoo Sports Management. That company’s clutch of rugby league clients, promoted on its website, include Cameron Munster, Lachlan Ilias and Jonah Pezet.

But Anasta’s player-agent interests do not affect his ability to do his day job in the rugby league media, even if he were to talk about matters that impinge on his clients and their interests.

I don’t watch much of Anasta’s to-camera stuff, and I’ve no view whether his opinions favour his clients’ interests or not. But even if they do, do those circumstances constitute Anasta having a conflict of interest? Hardly. That would assume someone in Anasta’s position in the media lives in a soundproof........

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