Legal Question in Legal Ethics in New York

Forced Donation

My company has a contract with a county in NY. A government official has required that we donate money to a charity which he is an acting board member. The donation is not included in the contract, but this person has the right to cancel the contract for any reason. I'm not sure if he receives any compensation from the charity, but it feels like I'm placing money into their private slush fund.


Asked on 9/05/07, 5:57 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Johm Smith tom's

Re: Forced Donation

Yes and it looks like that also. I'd approach him by saying something like, "Our attorney is advising us to not do this until we have confirmed that the county is fully aware of the apparent conflict of interest. Get his "request" from him in writing and you'll be able to prove that he is doing this. This sounds very bad, although it probably happens a lot. I personally don't think you should do this, but you'd need to get yourself into a power position and that might not be easy. The best thing would be to get this guy away from your contract.

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Answered on 9/05/07, 10:17 pm


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