Whistle-blowing is the act of disclosing illegal or immoral practices to a person or organization who can influence a legal and moral outcome of the situation. Whistle-blowing in the United States dates back to 1773 when Benjamin Franklin released confidential letters that showed the Massachusetts’ governor lied to Parliament to increase a military presence in the new world (”A Timeline”). While whistle-blowing is an ethical act, there can be situations where it is unethical. First, let’s look at the example of Caterpillar’s tax evading case. Daniel Schlicksup began his Caterpillar career in 1992 with a tax staff position. The company wanted him knowledgeable in International tax law. Therefore, the company placed Schlicksup in Brussels …show more content…
Additionally, he informed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that he felt retaliated against for reporting his concerns to upper management. Furthermore, in 2009 he sued Caterpillar for their perceived retaliation (Gruley). In a 2011 deposition, a Caterpillar attorney asked Schlicksup if his actions were advisable. Schlicksup stated: “It is absolutely in the Shareholders’ best interests to have the most accurate financial statements they can have (Gruley).” Schlicksup’s lawsuit settled on February 14,2012, under undisclosed terms. His career at Caterpillar terminated shortly thereafter (Gruley). The IRS investigation continued. In December 2013, the IRS notified Caterpillar it “had understated its U.S Income by more than $3 billion for 2005 and 2007 through 2009(Gruley).” On April 1, 2014, the state Senate Committee concluded that Caterpillar owed $2.4 billion in taxes. That amount was subject to change as they reviewed recent years financial statements. On March 2, 2017, armed with search warrants signed by a federal judge, the IRS, Department of Commerce, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) all entered Caterpillar’s Peoria headquarters. They interviewed employees and took documents, encryption devices, and other evidence related to the investigation. The investigation continues today …show more content…
First, they encourage the whistle-blower to consider their motivation. In the article, they explain to the whistle-blower that reports based off vindictive or vengeful reasoning will be considered unethical reports. The whistle-blower is encouraged to ensure they are reporting for the sake of the company’s and the public’s well being. Second, they remind the whistle-blower to analyze the cost of their report. Subsequently, if the whistle-blower decides to go outside of the agency, they remind them to obtain all evidence to verify the ethical conflict exists as well as ensure they have a proper support system in place. Lastly, they prompt the whistle-blower to ensure they have exhausted all internal options before they make an outside claim (Going
...not have occurred (again the out-dated accounting system shortfall). Further, analytical procedures could be used to compare budgets / forecasts to actual results and variations could be investigated (i.e. expenses higher than anticipated or profit less than anticipated). The following is article by Tracy Coenen is more critical of KOSS' management than of the auditor, Grant Thorton. She contends that while auditor should have caught this fraud, management is more to blame because of not addressing internal control issues. http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2010/01/koss-corp-fraud-defending-grant-thornton-no/
Under these circumstances, the court agreed that Summit had no reason to know or suspect that Kellar was working before her shift. Kellar’s wage payment claim under Indiana law was derivative of her FLSA claim, it failed for the same reasons. Thus, the Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment on both claims in Summit’s favor.
Case 4: In this case, The PCAOB found that Ligand Pharmaceuticals restated the financial statements for the year 2003, and recognized around $59 million less in revenues from product sales than originally recognized and reported a net loss more than 2.5 times the net loss originally reported. As a result, PCAOB ordered that James was prohibited from associating with any registered public accounting firm for at least two years from the date of its order.
Ethics is seeks to understand and to determine how human actions can be judged as right or wrong. We may make ethical judgments.
A whistleblower is a person who brings to notice any illegal act, fraud or misconduct prevailing with a company or organization. There are multiple situations involving wrongdoing by the government official, or your supervisor or the company itself wherein common people like you and me may feel like reporting and exposing the wrongdoers. The feeling of being a part of the wrongful acts of fraud or misconduct may cause someone to be a whistleblower and expose the unethical people. A whistleblower may be an employee, auditor, lawyer, ex-employee or customer of the company. Being a whistleblower is not easy and glamourous as it sounds! The grim reality of a whistleblower’s life is well described by C. Fred Alford in his book ‘Whistleblowers:
Whistle-blowing can be defined many different ways. For example, from page 384 in the book, whistle-blowing is the voluntary release of nonpublic information, as a moral protest, by a member or former member of an organization outside the normal channels of communication to an appropriate audience about illegal and/or immoral conduct in the organization or conduct in the organization that is opposed in some significant way to the public interest. For a simpler explanation of the term whistle-blowing, Merriam-Webster defines the term as, an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency and who is commonly vested by statute with rights and remedies for retaliation.
Whistle blowing is a controversial topic in the professional industry. Whistle blowing is the act of speaking out against a fellow colleague or even a friend that has done something non-ethical or illegal in the workplace. A whistleblower raises concerns about the wrongdoing inside of the workplace. Employees hesitate to become a whistleblower because of the idea of becoming a snitch on fellow employees and having a bad rep around the office. This concern was lowered in 1989 with a law called the Whistleblower Protection Act that protects federal government employees in the United States from retaliatory action for voluntarily disclosing information about dishonest or illegal activities occurring at a government organization (whistleblowers.gov).
“Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage” (Confucius Quotes, 2012). The person who does her duty, at great risk to her own interest, when most others would defy from fear is considered a hero (Schafer, 2004). Dr. Nancy Olivieri is a hero who blew the whistle on Apotex, University of Toronto (U of T) and the Hospital for Sick Children (HSC); and fought for her academic rights till the end. Whistle-blowing refers to actions of an employee that breach her loyalty to the organization but serves the public interest. When other constraints proved to be ineffective, whistle-blowing acts as a check on authority of the organization. Whistle-blowers expose severe forms of corruption, waste, and abuse of power within their organization and put the organization in a position where it is answerable to the public, thus enhancing its accountability (Cooper, 2006, pg. 198-205).
With the emergence of unethical practices found in international corporations, whistleblowing has been more and more common. A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information that is deemed illegal, immoral, or dishonest. In SNC-Lavalin, the whistleblower was justified. In this case, the senior executives were paying bribes and taking money from mega projects won under the Gadhafi regime (Wikipedia, 2015, n.p). There are several issues in this case.
They were committing fraud by creative accounting, acting illegally when using insider trading and shredding their documents relevant to the investigation. Next, consider the stakeholders. Anyone who owns stock in the company would suffer, along with every employee. Under the values bullet we can assume that they have none. Greed and power got the better of every one of them.
Later that year, Dennis Kozlowski resigned. In September of 2002 then-former CEO Dennis Kozlowski, former CFO Mark Swartz, and former General Counsel Mark Belnick were sued for accounting frauds. In 2005 both Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz were sentenced to 8 to 25 years in prison.
The Relevance of the Salomon v. Salomon Case 'Salomon v Salomon is an outdated case with little relevance to modern company law.' Discuss. Salomon v Salomon[1] served to establish the principle of corporate personality that 'forms the cornerstone of company law. '[2] It is my contention that despite various attempts by both the legislature and the judiciary to circumvent the principle, this 'cornerstone' has not been eroded, rather, it forms the very foundations of modern company law.
The Queensland Whistleblower Protection Act ‘endows withuniquefortification [in the public interest] to disclosures about unlawful, negligent or improper public sector conduct’. The NSW Protected Disclosures Act is intended to ‘provide protection for public officials disclosing corrupt
Whistleblowing is an ethical procedure when there is clear evidence of serious evidence, that will harm the public and the blower has tried to find an internal solution to effect change. The whistleblower who is associated with the unethical activity has a moral responsibility to do the right thing.
Whistle blowing is an attempt of an employee or former employee of a company to reveal what he or she believes to be a wrongdoing in or by a company or organization. Whistle blowing tries to make others aware of practices that are considered illegal or immoral. If the wrongdoing is reported to someone in the company it is said to be internal. Internal whistle blowing tends to do less damage to the company. There is also external whistle blowing. This is where the wrongdoing is reported to the media and brought to the attention of the public. This type of whistle blowing tends to affect the company in a negative way because of bad publicity. It is said that whistle blowing is personal if the wrongdoing affects the whistle blower alone (like sexual harassment), and said to be impersonal if the wrongdoing affects other people. Many people whistle blow for two main reasons: morality and revenge.