# Independence and Sponsorship Policy

Issuers, sponsors, advertisers, clients, and commercial licensees receive no control over rule design, evidence admission, decision status, review timing, corrections, comparisons, or result ordering.

Commercial relationships MUST be disclosed near the relevant commercial surface. Sponsorship MUST NOT create an approval badge, accelerate evidence admission, suppress limitations, or change classification. Classification staff and processes MUST be able to publish adverse, unknown, conflicting, corrected, or withdrawn states without commercial approval.

## Operator identity and review model

ETFCTA is owned, published, and operated by **Sohadot** as independent reference infrastructure, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by any ETF issuer. Operational and correction contact: `agent@sohadot.com`.

The review model is disclosed as **single-operator**: one operator performs extraction, classification, review, and publication (logical actor `ACT-ETFCTA-OPERATOR-001`, `solo_operator: true` in every current decision record). This concentration is stated openly rather than masked behind role labels, and is tracked as `RSK-008`.

An **independent second reviewer is not appointed** (status: `not_appointed`). ETFCTA does not create a fictitious reviewer to imply capacity it does not have. Independent review is **mandatory** — and MUST be recorded on the decision — only in these higher-stakes situations:

1. a conflicting-evidence finding between admitted sources;
2. a material correction or retraction of a published classification;
3. an amendment to the ECS standard or a governed rule;
4. a legally sensitive claim (identity, trademark, or issuer-dispute exposure);
5. any paid activity related to a classification, benchmark, or comparison surface.

Outside these triggers, single-operator publication is permitted and disclosed. When a trigger fires and no independent reviewer is yet appointed, the affected decision MUST NOT be published (or, if already published, MUST be flagged and held for correction) until independent review is obtained. Appointing an independent reviewer is a governed decision recorded in the Decision Log and the Transparency Register.