VIPGroup's Code
of Ethics

We, the members of the Value Innovation Partners, in recognition of the importance of our methodologies which effect the quality of life in the business world, and in accepting a personal obligation to our profession, its members and the business communities we serve, do hereby commit ourselves to the highest ethical and professional conduct and do further agree:

1. Service our clients with integrity, competence and objectivity.
2. Maintain client information and records of engagements confidential and only use engagement or propriety information with the client's permission.
3. We will not take advantage, profit from or gain in anyway from engagement or confidential client information for ourselves, our firm, or for our client's competition.
4. Hold paramount the trust, confidence, and financial health of our clients and shall strive to comply with the principles of proper professional conduct in the performance of our professional duties.
5. Seek to contract clients in necessary engagement which demonstrate value and benefits.
6. Accept only engagements for which we are qualified by our competence and capable through our experience.
7. Assign staff to client engagements in accord with their experience, knowledge, and expertise.
8. Immediately acknowledge any influences on our objectivity and will offer to withdraw from an engagement when our integrity may be questioned or compromised.
9. Pause or end any engagement in which the client demonstrates an unwillingness to continue or shows financial need.
10. Keep our clients reasonably informed about the status of an engagement and associated benefits in a timely manner and promptly comply with a reasonable request for information.
11. Our fees and expenses shall be reasonable, business case justified, legitimate, and commensurate with the services we deliver and the responsibility we accept.
12. Disclose to our clients in advance any fees or commissions that we receive for equipment, supplies or services we recommend to our clients which are independent of our fees.
13. Respect the intellectual property rights of our clients, educators, other consulting firms, and sole practitioners and will not use proprietary information or methodologies without permission.
14. Treat colleagues, co-workers, and competitors with respect regardless of such factors such as race, religion, gender, disability, age, or natural origin.

The term "ethics" is used in several different ways. It means "the study of morals". It is also the name for that branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of morals and moral evaluation (what is right and wrong, virtuous or vicious, and beneficial or harmful "to others"). The term ethics or morality is used to mean the standards for ethical or moral behavior of a particular group, such as "Buddhist ethics" or "Nursing ethics" or "Roman Catholic morality".

To give a description of such ethical codes and standards is descriptive ethics. Descriptive ethics does not require making a judgment as to whether the code or standards of behavior have ethical justification. Examination of the adequacy of moral or ethical values, standards, or judgments is normative ethics. Some authors even use the term "ethics" or "morality" more loosely to mean any code of behavior, even one that does not claim to have moral justification.

It may be important to examine such codes of behavior and see how they affect the opportunities for moral action, but not every code of behavior has, or is even claimed to have moral/ethical justification. The term "moral" tends to be used for more practical elements, such as "moral problems" and "moral beliefs", and "ethical" tends to be used for more abstract and theoretical elements, such as "ethical principle", but the distinction is by no means hard and fast.