Valve requires public disclosure of conflict of interest in the CS2 scene

Valve made subtle yet noticeable changes to the conflict of interest section of the CS2 tournament operations requirement rulebook this last Thursday, March 20th. Now, any potential conflicts of interest involving tournament operators and organizations require public disclosure.

The section about conflict of interest now reads as follows:

Tournament Operator and Tournament staff may not have any business relationship, including, but not limited to, shared management, shared ownership of entities, licensing, and loans, whether related to Valve Games or otherwise (each an "Entanglement") with any Participant unless approved by Valve and publicly disclosed.

An Entanglement is considered approved if (a) it is disclosed to Valve in writing and (b) publicly disclosed and (c) Valve has not objected to within 90 days of the disclosure to Valve; provided that only disclosures after the Effective Date of the Agreement shall trigger the 90 days period.

It's unclear at this point why Valve decided to require that conflicts of interest be publicly disclosed, however, it could be very much tied to the recently announced partnership between several esports organizations that invest in CS2 and the Esports World Club Foundation.

HLTV's Editor-in-Chief Milan "Striker" Švejda was quick to point out how the partnership provides funds to a group of selected teams and the obvious lack of transparency.

Valve is actively trying to keep the CS2 ecosystem as open as possible since it crackeddown on partnership leagues and introduced the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) system.