I was recently in a situation where some information that I had from one client may have been problematic to another.
One of my clients was looking to branch off into a brand new business venture. This venture would take them into a whole new arena. The purpose of this had multiple reasons, the best one being that owning is better than renting.
Unfortunately one of the potential participants that was to have a part in the venture has a complete lack of moral integrity. I know this because they were a client before I fired them. Working with them for a short period of time I quickly found that they had surprisingly little in the way of morals or scruples.
But I need to keep my client’s information a secret, even if I have no respect for them as an individual. This has never been a problem before; the circumstances in this case were a bit more entangled.
I had discussed the situation with the Chairman of the ICPAS Ethic’s Committee and we had agreed upon a plan where I was to counsel my client to take aggressive steps with a financial review of any parties to take an active role in the new endeavor.
But luckily my client took a slight change in their plans and I do not have the moral quagmire.