Review a paper with recent coauthors I got a request to review a paper from a journal. I know the topic area well, but I've had some recent collaborations with some of the authors. Should I decline the request because of this? What is the common practice here?
It's potentially a conflict of interest, but some fields are small and have few competent reviewers. Tell the editors, and let them decide. They can offset a bias in their final decision in an informed way, or take you off the review if they believe this poses a problem.