What is your experience and position on referral fees by an unlicensed design consultant from a PE exempt industry ? The Professional Engineering ethics standards seem pretty clear and prohibit such fees to be received or given by the PE unless they are from a sales or marketing company that is retained by the PE doing the engineering work. However, if your a PE and you do also work in exempt industries it seems that the referral fee issue is becoming more common and will have to be dealt with at some point.