By accepting the trip from Quadrangle, has Harris complied with the CFA Institute Code and Standards?

Maria Harris is a CFA® Level 3 candidate and portfolio manager for Islandwide Hedge Fund. Harris is commonly involved in complex trading strategies on behalf of Islandwide and maintains a significant relationship with Quadrangle Brokers, which provides portfolio analysis tools to Harris. Recent market volatility has led Islandwide to incur record-high trading volume and commissions with Quadrangle for the quarter. In appreciation of Islandwide’s business, Quadrangle offers Harris an all-expenses-paid week of golf at Pebble Beach for her and her husband. Harris discloses the offer to her supervisor and compliance officer and, based on their approval, accepts the trip.

Harris has lunch that day with C. K. Swamy, CFA, her old college roommate and future sister-in-law. While Harris is sitting in the restaurant waiting for Swamy to arrive, Harris overhears a conversation between the president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Progressive Industries. The president informs the CFO that Progressive’s board of directors has just approved dropping the company’s cash dividend, despite its record of paying dividends for the past 46 quarters. The company plans to announce this information in about a week. Harris owns Progressive’s common stock and immediately calls her broker to sell her shares in anticipation of a price decline.

Swamy recently joined Dillon Associates, an investment advisory firm. Swamy plans to continue serving on the board of directors of Landmark Enterprises, a private company owned by her brother-in-law, for which she receives $2,000 annually. Swamy also serves as an unpaid advisor to the local symphony on investing their large endowment and receives four season tickets to the symphony performances.

After lunch, Alice Adams, a client, offers Harris a 1 -week cruise as a reward for the great performance of her account over the previous quarter. Bert Baker, also a client, has offered Harris two airplane tickets to Hawaii if his account beats its benchmark by more than 2% over the following year.

Juliann Clark, a CFA candidate, is an analyst at Dillon Associates and a colleague of Swamy’s. Clark participates in a conference call for several analysts in which the chief executive officer at Dex says his company’s board of directors has just accepted a tender offer from Monolith Chemicals to buy Dex at a 40% premium over the market price. Clark contacts a friend and relates the information about Dex and Monolith. The friend promptly contacts her broker and buys 2,000 shares of Dex’s stock.

Ed Michaels, CFA, is director of trading at Quadrangle Brokers. Michaels has recently implemented a buy program for a client. This buy program has driven up the price of a small-cap stock, in which Islandwide owns shares, by approximately 5% because the orders were large in relation to the average daily trading volume of the stock. Michaels’ firm is about to bring shares of an OTC firm to market in an

IPO. Michaels has publicly announced that, as a market maker in the shares, his trading desk will create additional liquidity in the stock over its first 90 days of trading by committing to minimum bids and offers of 5,000 shares and to a maximum spread of one-eighth.

Carl Park, CFA, is a retail broker with Quadrangle and has been allocated 5,000 shares of an oversubscribed IPO. One of his clients has been complaining about the execution price of a trade Park made for her last month, but Park knows from researching it that the trade received the best possible execution. In order to calm the client down. Park increases her allocation of shares in the IPO above what it would be if he allocated them to all suitable client accounts based on account size. He allocates a pro rata portion of the remaining shares to a trust account held at his firm for which his brother-in-law is the primary beneficiary.

By accepting the trip from Quadrangle, has Harris complied with the CFA Institute Code and Standards?
A . Harris may accept the trip since she maintains a significant relationship with Quadrangle that contributes to the performance of client accounts.
B . Harris may accept the trip since she disclosed the trip to her supervisor and compliance officer and accepted based on their approval.
C . Harris may not accept the trip since the offer from Quadrangle could impede her ability to make objective investment decisions on behalf of the client.

View Answer

Answer: C

Explanation:

Standard I{B) Professionalism: Independence and Objectivity prohibits members and candidates from accepting any gift that reasonably could be expected to compromise their independence and objectivity. The purpose of the gift appears to be to ensure that Islandwide continues to do business with Quadrangle and can be seen, therefore, as a clear attempt to influence her choice of brokers in the future. (Study Session 1, LOS 2.a)