IMF releases ethics rules after scandal

May 20, 2011 |

Washington

Tags:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The International Monetary Fund published its new official code of conduct ironically the same day its chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned to face charges of alleged sexual assault in New York.

The new ethics rules set guidelines on workplace relationships and sexual harassment, and were approved on May 6 but publicized on Thursday for unclear reasons.

They came five days after now ex-managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York on allegations that he sexually assaulted and attempted to rape a hotel chambermaid. He has denied the charges.

In October 2008, the married Strauss-Kahn was cleared of accusations of abuse of his power as IMF chief following an inquiry into his affair with a Hungarian economist who worked in the IMF's Africa department.

The IMF board called the relationship a ‘serious error of judgment’ but did not find him guilty of harassment or abuse of power.

IMF spokesman William Murray said on Thursday that the new policies on personal relationships "are strong and consistent with best practice, including in the United States."

"A close personal relationship between a supervisor and subordinate presents a potential conflict of interest and must be reported and resolved, usually by reassignment of one of the individuals to a different work unit," he said in a statement.

"Failure to report and then resolve the potential conflict of interest constitutes misconduct and is grounds for disciplinary action," he added.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/74679" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a3351decc5f17fa2acdcb9247a3bcea0" value="form-a3351decc5f17fa2acdcb9247a3bcea0" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="91825238" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>