Independence
Probative doesn’t act for both sides of a dispute at the same time, and it never uses one client’s confidential information for another. Fees are fixed in writing before work starts and don’t change with what we find. We don’t hold or trade shares in the companies we write about, apart from diversified funds we don’t direct.
1. Conflicts
We don’t act for both sides of a dispute at the same time. Before you tell us more than the company or project and your part in it, we check whether we’re free to act and tell you the result. A client relationship starts when an engagement letter is signed. Anything a client tells us in confidence stays confidential after the work ends, and we never use it for anyone else.
2. Fees and findings
Every engagement has a fixed fee, agreed in writing with the scope before work starts. The fee doesn’t change with what we find. We turn down work that asks for a particular conclusion.
3. Securities
Neither Probative nor anyone who works on a Read or an engagement holds, buys or sells shares in any company we write about, or takes a position against one. Diversified funds that we don’t direct are the only exception.
4. Funding
Probative is privately owned and has no outside investors. No government, campaign group or company pays us to write a Read.
5. Right of reply
Before we publish anything that names a company, a group or a person, we send them what we intend to say and give them at least ten business days to respond. We publish their response or a fair summary of it. We don’t discuss paid work with anyone named in something we intend to publish, and nobody can delay, change or stop a publication by engaging us. Reads are private reports and are never published. We won’t publish anything that names a company we’ve sent a Read to without its written agreement.
6. Corrections
When we publish a note, it’s dated and versioned. A correction is added as a dated line saying what changed, and any deletion is noted. We reply to a correction request within five business days.
hello@probativehq.com. We usually reply within one business day.