Article 18U.K.Conflicts of interest
1.Member States shall require investment firms to take all reasonable steps to identify conflicts of interest between themselves, including their managers, employees and tied agents, or any person directly or indirectly linked to them by control and their clients or between one client and another that arise in the course of providing any investment and ancillary services, or combinations thereof.
2.Where organisational or administrative arrangements made by the investment firm in accordance with Article 13(3) to manage conflicts of interest are not sufficient to ensure, with reasonable confidence, that risks of damage to client interests will be prevented, the investment firm shall clearly disclose the general nature and/or sources of conflicts of interest to the client before undertaking business on its behalf.
3.In order to take account of technical developments on financial markets and to ensure uniform application of paragraphs 1 and 2, the Commission shall adopt, in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 64(2), implementing measures to:
(a)define the steps that investment firms might reasonably be expected to take to identify, prevent, manage and/or disclose conflicts of interest when providing various investment and ancillary services and combinations thereof;
(b)establish appropriate criteria for determining the types of conflict of interest whose existence may damage the interests of the clients or potential clients of the investment firm.