POLICY ON CONFLICT OF INTEREST REGARDING
ASSETS MANAGED BY THE TREASURER
Adopted September 22, 2005
Amended July 19, 2007, November 15, 2007, and March 20, 2008

The Regents has adopted Investment Policy Statements for the University of California Retirement Plan and General Endowment Pool, which assign limited roles and responsibilities to investment fiduciaries, with appropriate checks and balances.

The existing governance process has avoided the potential for and the appearance of conflicts of interest with respect to the selection of individual investments or investment managers by maintaining a separation of roles and responsibilities.

The Regents’ Committee on Investments is responsible for oversight of the management of investments on behalf of The Regents. This involves the establishment of investment policies and oversight of the management of the assets with advice from the Investment Advisory Group. These responsibilities include approving an asset allocation policy, performance benchmarks, risk budgets, and investment guidelines.

The Treasurer is responsible for implementing the approved investment policies and the development of investment processes and procedures for asset allocation, risk management, investment manager selection and termination, allocation, monitoring and evaluation, and the identification of management strategies that will improve the investment efficiency of the Fund assets.

Individual Regents and members of the Regents’ Investment Advisory Group (IAG) are prohibited from contacting the Treasurer’s Office to offer advice or recommendations with respect to the selection of specific investments, investment managers, or investment management firms. The General Counsel is responsible for determining, pursuant to the following procedures, that the Treasurer’s responsibilities for selecting investment managers have been exercised free of any such prohibited efforts to influence the Treasurer’s Office. The Treasurer's Office will advise the General Counsel's Office if it is contacted by a Regent or an IAG member in connection with the choice of investments, investment managers, or investment management firms. The Office of the General Counsel will then determine whether the communication was prohibited pursuant to this policy. In the event such a prohibited effort to influence a Treasurer’s Office selection of investments, investment managers, or investment management firms is identified, the General Counsel shall immediately bring the matter to the attention of the Chair of the Regents’ Committee on Investments.

In order to maintain the highest fiduciary standards and to continue to comply with institutional investment best practices, this Policy explicitly separates the roles and responsibilities of various UC fiduciaries to ensure the continuance of sound investment practice and the protection against real or perceived conflict of interest, especially with regard to the selection of individual investments or investment managers. By separating the duties of investment policy-making and investment implementation, The Regents’ Committee on Investments has created an institutional framework to uphold the California Political Reform Act of 1974, which provides that public officials shall not make, participate in making, or influence a governmental decision in which the official has a financial interest.