Conflicts of Interest | Executive SubDAO Members

As community contributors and elected Executive SubDAO members, we recognise that we will be at times put in a position to make funding decisions about projects that we are personally invested in.

When this happens, we believe the best option would be to abstain from final voting so as to prevent decision making bias.

We would appreciate the community’s feedback on this mechanism to ensure we the @ExecutiveSubDAO members operate with the highest level of integrity and transparency as we grow this network together with you.

3 Likes

As a strategic business, growth marketing and performance professional I would like to contribute to the growth of the Aragon Network in any way I can add value.

I hope to take a proactive role in helping our community develop proposals to both the Main DAO and the Executive Sub DAO and therefore would need to abstain from voting on proposals where I am directly involved.

As a historic record, I will add links within this post to every proposal where my role as an Executive SubDAO member may present a bias in decision making and/or a conflict of interest. In these matters, I trust my fellow executive team members will make the best decision for the community.

CC @daniel-ospina @fartunov

Here the reference in the Charter:
The same members shall not be part of more than one of the following: the
Executive Sub-DAO, Compliance Sub-DAO, Tech Committee, and Guardians in
Aragon Court mainnet.”

A part from the mentioned conflicts, transparency + abstention should be enough.

In addition, “the Main DAO may at any time remove said member of a
Sub-DAO”. Therefore, the conduct of the single SubDAO member may always be controlled/guided by the community.

3 Likes

I am 100% on board with disclosures. I do not necessarily see those as disqualifying conflicts of interest on all occasions, but differentiating between failure to disclose and deliberate omission is “leveraging ambiguity” so it could be a material breach. A couple of disclosures that come to mind:

  • Direct economic interest (I will personally be the recipient of funds - i.e. I will be a compensated member of a guild that is applying for funding to ESD, or I intend to complete a bounty that is being funded). This also ties to the “privileged insider” example below
  • Indirect economic interest (I have a token/equity position in the payment recipient)

An example I am pasting here is from the first iteration of my exec sub-DAO application:
“As Head of Partnerships at Aragon I am in charge of growing the network’s ecosystem. I however have not directly participated in setting up the AN DAO Charter, or this election process, and in that context, I believe I should not be considered a privileged insider.”

4 Likes

@Ethan this is the forum post for discussion in regards to conflict of interest that you raised on the dGov Proposal Interested to better understand what you mean by “the governance process should be fixed in this regards” fixed as in specified? fixed as in improved? Keen to understand what you see as the solution to contributor participation being that making proposals is implicit in the ESD members role and that being a member of the ESD does not in my understanding exclude me from being a rewarded contributor in other ways beyond the separation of powers specified in the current charter

Aragon Governance Process S 2 (a)
The same members shall not be part of more than one of the following: the Executive SubDAO, Compliance Sub-DAO, Tech Committee, and Guardians in Aragon Court mainnet.

TAO Voting Proposal includes COI statement Financial Proposal: Demoing a Tao Voting DAO

1 Like