...before the rule 5 draft. Ethical or unethical? Owner signed several of them and traded to someone who didn't sign any.

Did the other owner have an unprotected pick? If so, it's potential collusion.

"Sign this guy for me and we'll make a trade"

Yes. Pick for acquiring owner was after 16 and he didn't sign a type a.

It's a problem for me. Happened in Uncle Charlie during ST. I was seemingly the only one bothered by it though.

It warrants scrutiny, but I don't think you can immediately claim they are cheaters and that no proof of collusion is needed. I'm not a fan of deals like these myself and I wouldn't object to a world if they wanted to create a rule with regards to this (type A/B signings cannot be traded until after the draft takes place would be the simplest, probably). But as things are written, if someone decides it is a good strategy to sign a bunch of Type A players with the intent to flip them, this does not appear to violate the rules. There is an example prohibiting the signing of "questionable" Type A players and there is another example that appears to reference signing a Type A and trading it back to the team that received comp picks, though that example abuses the English language enough that it could well be misinterpreted. CS should be able to determine if a trade was discussed before signing, correct? If so, let CS look into it and blackball them if they did collude, but if not....I just don't think greed/opportunism rises up to the level of collusion.

Could be perfectly innocent. It's just a bad look.

Does the return on the trade seem fair? If so, might be less of a concern. Definitely not a good look, though.

What about signing your own type A and then trading him? Instead of a pick, you get a known commodity.

That's a normal sign and trade type deal in my eyes.

For those curious about how this ended up resolving itself, slash asked for a gift certificate,which someone said they sent to him, and to be replaced in the world. The trade itself got vetoed and that seems to be the end of that; veto system worked as intended and there don't seem to be any further arguments or attempts to trade this guy.