Expert network compliance: what you can and cannot say on a paid call

Expert network compliance, from the expert's side, is one rule written four different ways: share your own experience and judgment, and never share confidential information or material non-public information (MNPI) about any company, starting with your current and former employers. GLG, Guidepoint, Third Bridge and AlphaSights (four of the largest expert networks, the firms that connect investors and consultants with professionals for paid calls) each write that rule into their expert terms, and their versions are close to identical. This post covers those rules, what to do when a question goes too far, and the extra limits for government and public company staff.

This is general information, not legal advice. Your employment contract and your employer's policies can be stricter than any network's rules, and the stricter rule wins.

1. Every large network writes down the same four rules

AlphaSights' site blocks automated readers, so its column comes from the Internet Archive's April 11, 2026 copy of its code of conduct. Smaller networks may not publish their expert rules at all: Dialectica, for example, keeps them in a contract you see per project.

The practical rule is the same everywhere. Talk about how your industry works and what you did. Do not talk about what a specific company you owe a duty to is doing that it has not announced.

2. MNPI is the expensive mistake, because the fee can look like the reason you shared it

Third Bridge's expert terms give the definition you will meet most often: MNPI "is information that is not generally available and there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable investor" would consider it important in making an investment decision. Its examples include financial results before they are made public and unpublished clinical trial results.

For the expert, the risk is usually passing information to a client who trades, rather than trading yourself. Our guide to material non-public information explains the law, including why a consulting fee can be the "personal benefit" that turns a slip into insider trading.

Our working test: if you cannot point to where the company or a regulator published it, treat it as non-public and decline. The cost is that you will sometimes withhold something harmless that was in a trade paper.

3. Your current employer is off limits, and so are its competitors' projects

• The whole corporate family. Guidepoint's key rules say the ban "extends to the parent and subsidiaries of an Advisor's employer."
• Competitors as clients. Guidepoint's terms bar consulting "for a Client that is a direct competitor" of a company where you hold a current role, and Third Bridge's terms say you will not "knowingly participate in any Consultation for a Client that is (or is acting on behalf of) a competitor."
• Board seats and advisory roles count. Third Bridge covers companies where you are an officer or director, and AlphaSights adds consultant, agent or representative.
• Approval is your job. GLG says experts confirm they "Have reviewed any relevant agreements to which they are subject and are permitted to serve as experts" (GLG compliance), and Guidepoint "does not accept as Advisors the employees of companies or their subsidiaries that prohibit employee participation" (Guidepoint compliance).

If you are not sure what your employer allows, our moonlighting policy post walks through finding the rule and asking for approval in writing.

4. Your duty to a former employer does not end when the job does

Leaving a company frees you to discuss it as a topic, but never to share its secrets. Guidepoint's key rules put it flatly: "Under no circumstances may an Advisor ever disclose confidential information about a former employer." AlphaSights and Third Bridge write the same duty into their codes of conduct, as the table above shows.

The law backs this up. Under the federal trade secrets statute (18 U.S.C. 1839), information is a trade secret when its owner "has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret" and it "derives independent economic value" from not being generally known. Disclosing one you learned under a duty to keep it secret can be misappropriation, whether or not you still work there.

Two networks add waiting periods for specific roles:

• Finance and accounting staff. Guidepoint's terms say that if you worked in a company's finance or accounting department, you "will not consult about that company until four months after termination of your employment."
• Auditors. Third Bridge's terms say a current or former auditor will not comment on any company they audited in the past three years.

Sort what you know by whether it was ever announced. What has since been made public is fair to discuss. What is probably still true and was never announced (the price in a live contract, the roadmap you saw in your last month) is the material to decline.

Short version: you can discuss your old company's market. You cannot discuss its secrets, on any timeline.

5. Expect the same pre-call questions every time, and answer them literally

Before each project, the network asks you to confirm you are clear to take it. GLG asks "Profile Questions that help us to understand the experts' conflicts and limitations," and lets clients add "custom screening questions or attestations" that you must answer before the call (GLG compliance). Guidepoint requires Advisors to "affirm in advance of each project" that they will follow its terms, and to represent that they reviewed its compliance tutorial in the past 12 months (Guidepoint compliance).

No network publishes a standard list. The eight questions below are our own summary of what the four networks' terms ask you to confirm, in our wording, with the clause behind each where one exists.

1. Are you an employee, officer, director or consultant of the company this project is about, or of its parent or a subsidiary?
2. Is the client a competitor of your current employer?
3. Have you worked for or advised a government body in the past two years? (Third Bridge cl. 3.1(e); see section 7.)
4. Are you involved in a current clinical trial? (Third Bridge, cl. 3.1(g).)
5. Is your employer the subject of a tender offer, or has it filed for an IPO? (Guidepoint and Third Bridge; see section 8.)
6. Does your employer allow outside consulting, and do you have any approval it requires? (GLG and Guidepoint, above.)
7. Have you completed the network's compliance training in the past 12 months? (Guidepoint, above.)
8. Have you been convicted of a felony, sanctioned or investigated by a securities regulator? (AlphaSights bars anyone who has.)

Answer each one for the specific project in front of you. A yes does not always rule you out: GLG, for example, lets employed experts take written, in-depth or ongoing projects once they "obtain written confirmation of employer consent" (GLG compliance). A wrong no can end your relationship with the network, and Guidepoint says Advisors who violate its terms "are removed from our network."

6. When a question goes too far, decline once, offer the general version, then end the call

Decide your script before the call. When a question needs non-public facts, say so in one sentence and offer what you can share. Our post on what happens on an expert network call covers keeping the rest of the hour useful.

Here is a made-up example. Rafael spent eleven years in procurement at a public packaging company and left 14 months ago. He keeps his decline sentence on an index card propped against his coffee mug. A client asks what his old employer pays per ton for resin under its current supply deal.

I can't share my former employer's contract terms. I can tell you how resin contracts in our industry are usually priced and what moved them while I was buying.

If the client rephrases the same question, decline again and move on. If the call keeps circling back, end it and tell the network the same day. Three of the four networks say they pay for your time when you do:

• GLG experts "Will immediately terminate any consulting project that moves into subject matters they cannot discuss," and if they tell GLG, "we'll pay them for the time they set aside" (GLG compliance).
• Guidepoint Advisors must stop and "immediately inform us of the reason," and "may submit a payment request for a full Project" ended early to comply (terms).
• Third Bridge experts end the consultation and email legal@thirdbridge.com, and are paid for the time spent "plus an additional 15 minutes" (terms, cl. 1.3).

At those three, ending a call for compliance does not cost you the fee, which removes the main reason people keep talking.

7. Government employees face their agency's rules first, and some cannot consult at all

If you work for a government, your agency's ethics rules come before any network's. Guidepoint's terms say that if your employer "prohibits its employees from participating in outside consulting projects," you cannot be an Advisor at all, and if you can, you agree "not to consult about matters presently regulated by the agency or department in which you are employed." Third Bridge's terms ask you to disclose government work in the past two years (cl. 3.1(e)) and bar current officials from discussing "government legislation, regulation, policy, contracts" or other business they could vote on or influence (cl. 3.1(f)).

US federal employees also have 5 CFR 2635.703, which bars them from allowing "the improper use of nonpublic information to further their own private interests or those of another." A paid expert call is a private interest. Our moonlighting policy post covers the federal approval rules for outside work.

Get written sign-off from your agency's ethics official before your first call. State and local employees should ask their own ethics office, because those rules vary by jurisdiction.

8. Public company employees have an insider trading policy to read, and a few blackout events

If you work at a public company, assume it has a written insider trading policy that covers talking to investors, and read it. The SEC's 2022 fact sheet on Rule 10b5-1 says the amendments added "Annual disclosure of a registrant's insider trading policies and procedures," so a US public company's annual filings are a good place to find it.

Two events stop calls outright. Guidepoint's key rules bar any employee, officer or director of a public company that is the target or bidder in a tender offer from consulting "on any topic" until it is resolved, and apply the same bar to employees of a private company that has filed for an IPO. Third Bridge's terms (cl. 3.1(l)) say you will not take part in any consultation while your employer is the subject of a tender offer or in the process of an initial public offering.

Officers and directors carry the most exposure, since they see the most material information. Our post on side income for executives covers which outside work a senior employee can usually get approved, and advisory board pay covers the board and advisor seats that count as roles in the rules above.

Where Instant Expert fits

The same compliance rules apply to any paid call, whoever arranges it. Our guide to expert network consulting covers joining the networks themselves.

On Instant Expert, a buyer invites you to a specific paid call or a written or voice answer and sets the amount up front. You receive the full amount offered, and you can reply with a higher price. You can claim your profile or see open paid requests on the request board.

Before your next call, write your one-sentence decline on a card, and check the project against your employer, its competitors and anything a former employer has never announced.