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Filing an Industry Code Violation Complaint

To file a Code Violation complaint against an Industry Professional, under section 14.3, the following requirements must be met:

  • The complainant must have a personal stake and personal knowledge of the violation alleged.
  • The allegations against the Industry Professional must be in writing and signed by the complainant and delivered to RWA staff. The allegations should be described with sufficient specificity to explain the nature of the complaint. Supporting evidence should be submitted with the complaint. Anonymous allegations will not be accepted.

When the RWA staff receives a complaint concerning an Industry Professional, whether said complaint is labeled as an Industry Code Violation or not, the RWA staff will conduct an initial assessment to determine if the matter is a Professional Relations complaint, meaning it is more appropriately handled informally as a matter of advocacy, or if it rises to the level of an Industry Code Violation. The office will discuss the matter with the complainant. If the complainant agrees the matter should be handled as a matter of advocacy, it will proceed according to office policy and the complainant will be kept apprised of the ongoing issues and communications in the matter. If the Industry Professional fails to respond to requests regarding the Professional Relations complaint or fails to satisfy RWA in resolving said complaint, then the matter may be escalated to an Industry Code Violation complaint.

If the matter rises to the level of an Industry Code Violation, RWA staff shall send a letter notifying the Industry Professional of the complaint relating to an alleged violation of RWA’s Industry Professional Code of Conduct. The Industry Professional will be given 30 days to provide a written response that shall include any and all evidence supporting the defense of the complaint. All parties shall have the opportunity to review all supporting evidence and respond.

Upon the expiration of the 30-day period provided to the Industry Professional under section 14.4.3, the RWA staff shall conduct a thorough investigation of the allegations and evidence provided as quickly as possible. RWA is not limited to the evidence provided by the complainant and the Industry Professional, and may gather its own evidence, provided that the complainant and Industry Professional have the opportunity to review this evidence and respond.

At the conclusion of the investigation both parties shall be notified of the results.

Contact RWA to discuss Industry Code Violations.