EA - Regulatory inquiry into Effective Ventures Foundation UK by HowieL

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Regulatory inquiry into Effective Ventures Foundation UK, published by HowieL on January 30, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Earlier today, the Charity Commission for England and Wales announced a statutory inquiry into Effective Ventures Foundation UK (EVF UK). We issued a short statement acknowledging the inquiry. As the recently appointed Interim CEO of EVF UK, I also wanted to say a bit more to the community.As you might imagine, writing this post feels a bit tough for a bunch of reasons. It’s a sensitive topic, there are lots of complicated legal issues to consider, and it’s generally a bit weird to write publicly about an agency that’s in the middle of investigating you (it feels a little like talking about someone in the third person without acknowledging that they’re sitting at the dinner table right next to you). One thing I really want to do is avoid speaking for the Charity Commission, which makes me hesitant to speculate too much about why exactly they chose to begin this inquiry, etc.But I’m going to do my best to figure out what’s helpful to say here.SummaryEffective Ventures Foundation UK (EVF UK) is the UK charity which, together with Effective Ventures Foundation US (EVF US), acts as host and fiscal sponsor for a wide range of projects including CEA, 80,000 Hours, and others.Following the FTX collapse, the Charity Commission for England and Wales has opened an inquiry into EVF UK’s financial situation and its governance and administration by its trustees.We were not particularly surprised by the Commission’s decision to open an inquiry. As it notes, some FTX-linked entities (such as the FTX Foundation) and related individuals were major donors to EVF UK, and there was the potential for a variety of conflicts of interest with respect to governance (e.g., two of EVF UK’s board members were affiliated with FTX Foundation). Especially given the scale and profile of the FTX collapse, it makes sense that the Commission wants extra visibility into whether we’re appropriately protecting our property, managing potential conflicts of interest, and generally complying with UK charity law.The UK board and executive team are cooperating in full and the Commission has confirmed that the trustees have fulfilled their duties by filing a serious incident report.Sharing updates in the midst of an ongoing inquiry is legally complicated, so there will probably be some limitations to the updates we’ll provide before the inquiry is complete. But we’ll do our best to share whatever (if anything) is legally sensible.What is Effective Ventures Foundation UK?For context, EVF UK is the UK charity which, together with EVF US, acts as host and fiscal sponsor for a wide range of projects, including CEA, 80,000 Hours and others. Everything in this post is only referring to the UK entity since that’s the entity which is regulated by the Charity Commission. (You can read more about the structure and role of EVF UK here.)What is a statutory inquiry?The Charity Commission is a regulator whose responsibilities include:Preventing mismanagement and/or misconduct by charities;Promoting compliance with charity law;Protecting charities’ property, beneficiaries, and work; andSafeguarding the public’s trust and confidence in charities.A statutory inquiry is one tool the Commission has for establishing facts or collecting evidence related to these responsibilities. Opening an inquiry gives the Commission information gathering powers; they can require a charity to send relevant information or documents and they can require individuals to answer questions. The Commission also has wide-ranging powers for protecting charities and ensuring compliance. Outcomes can range from taking no action or issuing a warning to appointing an interim manager to manage the charity or even r...