This week’s riddle: What do Rapaport and the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) have in common? The obvious answer: they both recently tried their utmost to see how fast they could destroy the remnants of their own reputation. It truly seems like a breathtaking race. The good news for the GIA is that, so far, it finished in second place – but only barely so. The last time we wrote about the GIA, President Donna Baker sent a memo to staff lamenting “you have probably heard, recent trade columns have impugned the good reputation of GIA.” She is quite right: reputation is what it is all about.
“ Some pundits,” she wrote, “want us to make a list of past suspects ‘public.’ ‘Naming names’ based on suspicion alone is wrong, and doing so would put GIA at great legal and moral risk. … It is troublesome that old rumors persist despite everything we have done – including being honest and forthright throughout this situation with you, the media and the industry through individual meetings, forums, news interviews, news releases, and the like. …We belong to an organization that was founded on the belief that truth, knowledge and transparency are the deterrents of fraud and misconduct,” wrote Baker.
