Harvard University’s Committee on Professional Conduct has completed a report on the alleged misdeeds of Andrei Shleifer, one of the most prominent members of its economics department, The Harvard Crimson reported this morning. The report remains under seal, and it is not known whether it condemns his conduct or exonerates him.

According to the Crimson, whose two sources spoke on condition of anonymity, Mr. Shleifer’s fate now rests with Jeremy R. Knowles, the interim dean of faculty. The strongest action that Mr. Knowles might take would be to recommend that the university’s governing board revoke Mr. Shleifer’s tenure.

In 1997, following allegations of financial conflicts of interest, Harvard removed Mr. Shleifer as director of the Institute for a Law-Based Economy, a Moscow-based program that the university operated under a federal contract (The Chronicle, June 6, 1997).

The federal government later sued the university, alleging that Mr. Shleifer and his wife had traded in Russian stocks for personal gain while he managed the Moscow program, which was designed to help privatize Soviet-era firms. According to the lawsuit, such self-dealing violated the university’s federal contract (The Chronicle, October 13, 2000).

Last August, Harvard settled the lawsuit by agreeing to pay the federal government $26.5-million and having Mr. Shleifer pay $2-million (The Chronicle, August 5, 2005). Under the settlement, Mr. Shleifer did not admit to any wrongdoing.

But the settlement did not end the controversy. The Shleifer affair became a topic of heated debate at Harvard during the weeks leading up to Lawrence H. Summers’s resignation as president in February. Some faculty members suggested that Mr. Summers, a close friend of Mr. Shleifer’s, had somehow protected him from university discipline and oversight (The Chronicle, February 24).