The Background and the legal process
Brazos manufacturing company is an internationally acclaimed company that deals in spare parts of reputable automobiles. The company has a large organizational structure that deals involve several employees. It has many Vice presidents, an Executive vice president and a president. The executive vice president is in charge of the operations of the company. The vice presidents of the companies were requested to cut their costs. The Executive vice president continued with his flashy lifestyle. He attended the most expensive Italian restaurant in Los Angeles.
The company controller, Jack noticed the executive vice president fraudulently used the company’s resources. The Company controller handled many personal matters of the Executive vice president. Tory Suzuko did not turn in any business miles. All the miles were considered personal for the sake of accounting. W-2 form reflected one hundred percent of his personal use. Tony Suzuko had been in the International Bracos Manufacturing incorporation for over three decades. He was a man of reputable skills and his work was respected by many people. With his thirty years’ experience and skills gained during that time, he had he was the highest ranking officer in North America.
The review of the 2001 expense report exposed serious financial discrepancies. The Company controller found out that Troy Suzuko had fraudulently misrepresented the company’s gas receipts. He sometimes refilled his car four times a day. He wondered how this was possible since the company executive had only one car. Jack informed the company’s Ethics Officer about the Executive vice president. The Ethics Officer was at first indifferent towards the companies chief executive’s actions. Jack informed him that he had been requested by Troy Suzuki to redesign the structure of the company and eliminate his position. Matt Thompson immediately bought Jacks idea of investigating him. Jack wondered why the company’s chief executive would be allowed to operate above the law while an employee had been fired the previous year for the misuse of company’s funds.
Upon investigation, new details of the Executive Vice president’s unethical practices came into light. The company executive had used the company’s credit cards to pay for personal dinners. He purchased personal items and filed false travel and entertainment receipts. Some of the lunches that the company paid for did not take place at all.
Matt Thompson and jack, the company controller, took the right course of action in this moral dilemma. The first step upon discovery is extricating themselves from the legal consequences of not reporting to the relevant authorities. The issue was reported to the Ethics Department. Jack involved the opinion of independent auditors who confirmed the discrepancies were true. The investigators exposed a large chunk of information that had been overlooked by the company for years. That is enough evidence to prosecute him in a court of law.
The Federal Sentencing Board has set steep penalties to all those who commit while collar crimes. Troy Suzuko blatant violation of the law is enough to earn him over three decades in prison. The cult of white collar crimes has to be eliminated in America. Fraud and the infringement of copyright rights fall under the while collar crimes. His actions involve conversion of property belonging to the business owners. The Company can also take the approach suggested by the North American Ethics Committee. They can handle the matter privately to avoid the bad reputation from the scandal.
Discussion with IMA Ethics Counselor and Impartial advisor
In any organization, ethics is key in ensuring that members of the organization uphold high moral standards, respect one another and that they minimize conflicts. The ethical standards are set by the organization and if members do not live up to such set standards, there should be a cause of action that should follow. This part of the paper will suggest some possible causes of action that should arise as a result of members failing to adhere to set standards of behavior and upholding ethical values. This has arisen out of a discussion with IMA Ethics Counselor and an impartial advisor.
The ethical values and standards that this part is dealing with include honesty, fairness, objectivity, responsibility, competence, professional expertise, confidentiality, integrity and credibility. Members of any organization should be able to carry themselves around with high degrees of honesty. Honesty entails fair dealings with other members and management on matters that are monetary. Every member should be able to, for example, return the correct value of money either lent to him by the organization, indicate the correct values on the books of accounts and also prepare the correct receipts in case of any sales made. Failure to do this should attract a penalty. Such penalty should be high enough to be deterrent. Some of the practices indicated above amount to corruption and abuse of office. Therefore, the practices should attract either a fine or a prison sentence. We agreed with the ethics counselor and the impartial advisor that members will be taught about these values at first. The penalty for dishonesty shall be either a fine or a prison sentence, depending on the gravity of the dishonesty.
The other value concerns competence. Every member of the organization must carry out their duties with high levels of professional expertise. Failure to do so would amount to negligence and therefore should attract a fine or a sentence, depending on the magnitude of the negligence. As agreed among us, such negligence should be as grave as any other tort and therefore the guidelines governing tortious liability should be used in determining the penalty.
The other ethical value that every member of an organization should adhere to is responsibility. Responsibility is an amorphous term and has a lot to do with it. A competent person and who was employed due to their competence will carry out their duties in the work place responsibly. Irresponsibility should lead to causes of action that are commensurate with the gravity of the irresponsibility. A worker who comes to the work place while drunk knows that the consequences are dire and should therefore be dealt with severely. Furthermore, a worker who deals with customers casually and without courtesy has themselves to blame when they are faced with punishment. In this sense, it was our agreement that irresponsibility should be punished with suspension or expulsion from the work place depending of the gravity of the irresponsibility and the harm it has caused to the organization and its immediate environment.
The other ethical value that workers must subscribe to is confidentiality. Confidential material in the work place should never be let out in the public domain. Any such release should be penalized by penalty or suspension, again depending on the magnitude of the harm that it has caused the organization. failure to abide by the other values for example integrity and credibility should equally attract a penalty or a prison sentence.
Concerning ethical issues that are at the steak this matter, I have decided to consult my attorney on the same prevailing conditions. In this regard, ethical ground raised pauses the following features in the view of law as per the findings that I came to after my attorney advised me accordingly.
On the ground that ethics are center point to the matter at hand, it rests that legality remains as the overriding factor that determines the course and the directions of events expected. The principle of legality states that, an action cannot be brought before a court of law except on the circumstances that it is enshrined in the laws that guide the affairs of people.
On similar justifications, the matter at hand requires a strict dealing of issues. On aspects of the position taken by morality on the scale of most cherished and endeared aspects of the society, morality is till part of the society. It determines the direction taken by the force of law.
In this case, there exists a course of action, the danger that the negligence likely pauses to the environment is what provides for the presence of a cause of action that can result in the event the case lands in court, in this discourse, therefore, factors that are weighed dependent on the preponderance of evidence adduced. If the threat paused by the infringement to the expected ethics and morals, the value and the protection of the environment will be the ultimate result of the dispute.
Similarly in pursuit of solving the ethical issue, key factors must be looked into to ensure that justice takes center stage in the ensuing litigation. For one to be declared as a person who has violated the requirements of the law, the following must be proven: It must be established that the act was intentional, ill purposed and targeted destruction of the environment. On the same note, the codes of conduct expected from people will cease to have its impact. It is in the appreciation that the codes of conducts strings on ethics.
Environment is a keystone aspect that shapes and determines the what life is perpetuated, this is the reason to why the force of all will always recognize the cogency and importance of protecting the environment regardless of the probable procedurals that are eminent and likely to occur.
On evaluating the possibility of one being responsible for a certain crime or failure in working on the discretion of leaders, law requires that principles of good governance are adhered to and followed to the latte. Accountability transparency and competency should be regarded in the analysis of the likelihood of guilty aspect of the proponent s of the ethical menace that is the subject of this discussion.
On the other side of the coin, my attorney further told me that the case can take a different angle especially when it falls on normativity of law. In this regard, proponents of legal positivism and their counterpart’s o natural law would raise the issue of morality and ethics. Issues will hence arise in the contestation of whether the moral aspects of the society would be on a reasonable ground if still included in the laws. In this regard, justifications will determine a decision that will be reached.
In conclusion, my attorney told me that however the strict application of laws in practice the ideal framework f laws state that law is a pile of debris that has been tinkered with over time, this brings in the possibility of the dynamic aspects law.
References
Beauchamp, T. (2007). Ethical Theory of Business. New York: Prentice Hal.
Castellano, J. (2004). Managing by Objectives and Results (Mbo/Mbr) Could be Counterproductive and Contribute to a Climate That May Lead to Distortion of the System, Manipulation of Accounting Figures, and, Ultimately, Unethical Behavior. Management Accouting Quaterly Journal, 55.
Shaw , W. (2007). Business Ethics. New York: Cengage Learning.
