Most people who work for large corporations work to make money to pay their bills, save money for retirement, take care of their families and buy things for themselves and just simply live life with their hard earned paycheck. However, there are individuals who have a conscience to morally and ethically be honest and “do the right thing” when it comes to business and being fair to clients and consumers. Robert Fulk is an example of such a person. This past year, Fulk became what is known as a whistleblower. The quote above this introduction, fairly describes, what Robert Fulk did to his employer, United Parcel Services, Inc.—removed the mask of deception and exposed a scandal against a well-known client—the Government of the United States …show more content…
Over the years companies have come to believe they are above the law until a whistle blower believe he or she has the fiduciary right report the companies’ wrong doings. The First Amendment freedom of speech interpretation by the Supreme Court limits a public employee’s right to blow the whistle.
Robert Fulk was justified in reporting the United Parcel Service illicit transgressions against federal, state and local government agencies under the False Claims Act. Federal False Claims Act – 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729 (E) ”is authorized to make or deliver a document certifying receipt of property used, or to be used, by the Government and, intending to defraud the Government, makes or delivers the receipt without completely knowing that the information on the receipt is true” (Federal Claims Act Resource Center,
…show more content…
Code. It is now a criminal offense to retaliate against whistle-blowers, carrying penalties from a large fine to 10 years in prison” (Kleckner, Phil and Jackson, Craig 2004). Accordingly, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act helped Robert Fulk on many levels as it was he who exposed the falsehood of business practices of UPS and their cheating the US government—one of their biggest customers. Even though Fulk found himself in a compromising position with UPS, by exposing the mask and the deep connotations of deception that was underneath the UPS corporate body, he still came out winning a victory for himself and morally and ethically individuals who believe in being fair and upstanding
Name of Case: LaChance vs. Erickson Court: U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court Parties and their roles:. LaChance, director, Office of Personnel Management petitioner; Erickson et al Responded Relevant facts: Federal employees made false statements to agency investigators with respect to their misbehavior. The legal issue(s) raised: The legal issue raised was that the respondents, federal employees were charged by their agencies because each of them made false statements to the agency investigators with respect to their misconduct.
Wells Fargo In September of 2016 news broke out about the Wells Fargo scandal. Wells Fargo employees secretly opened millions of illegal fake credit cards and bank accounts for unknowing customers. According to How The Wells Fargo Phony Account Scandal Sunk John Stump, “Wells employees created more than 1.5 million unauthorized deposit accounts and issued more than 500,000 unauthorized credit card applications. These accounts racked up $2.6 million in fees for the bank.”
From what this case turns out to be, as determined by the facts surrounding it, if our organization was set up such that our supervisors have the power to fire employees under their supervision, the company could have potentially found its entangled in a Sarbanes-Oxley lawsuit. There is no doubt that had this morally upright secretary been fired for standing her ground in the face of our rogue supervisor 's demand for her to cook the books the company could have been in violation not only for attempting to file a fraudulent expense account but for taking retaliatory action against her for refusing to do such. On the other hand had the secretary connived with her boss, the supervisor and prepared the false expense report, the company 's reputation could have again been in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. A federal law that prohibits publicly traded companies such as ours, in engaging in fraudulence accounting and financial practices. Such a scenario could have ruined the corporation 's reputation and expose it to an enormous fine from the Federal Trade Commission.
Ms. Tolstedt decided to retire in July, 2016 when the investigation was moving toward finality. Wells Fargo allowed Ms. Tolstedt to retire and take with her around $125 million in stock options while around 5300 of her former employees are getting fired for their part of the fraudulent activities. The author feels Wells Fargo did an injustice to society and Ms. Tolstedt’s former employees by allowing her to retire and take all of her stock options with her, since she should have been
The tradition begun by the journalists in Jensen’s book still continues today. Greg Palast is one such journalist who is following in the footsteps of the muckrakers. He has been called the “most important investigative reporter of our time” by The Guardian and has been responsible for writing front page stories for influential news outlets such as “BBC Television Newsnight, The Guardian, Nation Magazine, Rolling Stone and Harper's Magazine”. His area of expertise is corporate fraud and he has gone undercover to conduct his investigations on five continents. He is responsible for writing influential stories such as “BP's Deepwater Horizon blow-out”, the U.S. role in the coup against Hugo Chavez, Enron’s attempt to buy favors from the British government, and the U.S. Presidential election theft in 2000 in
They claimed "the company had coached clients on improper tax workarounds that cost the agency as much as $712 million in wrongly awarded refunds"
The creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX Act) by senator Paul Sarbanes and representative Michael G. Oxley impacted a change in the way accounting was reported by government and non government bodies. It’s creation stemmed from the many corporate scandals occurring at the time such as Enron and Worldcom. The creation of this act opened many channels for the government to enforce oversight into the inner practices of large corporations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was the drastic change the government needed to manage and review corporate financials and reporting practices. By forcing corporations to comply with a more stringent set of regulations and allowing the government an audit and oversight board, they were allowed to positively
Although state laws regulated the activity of companies, there were no federal laws that did. Large companies, such as Standard Oil, took over the markets and gained extreme wealth through vertical and horizontal consolidation. Yet, many large corporations reached immense success through the corrupt bribing system. A letter from the SP’s representative in Washington was leaked making it clear that he considered members of Congress to be for sale. He stated, “It costs money to fix things so that I would know his bill would not pass.
One of the most important rules to be aware of with publicly traded companies is the Sarbones Oxley Act Section 806. Sox act protects “whistle-blowers” from receiving any negative actions regarding stepping up and reporting actions/practices
Remember with bigger responsibility, bigger demands, I know law enforcement they have power and authority. They are not at the same level as a regular citizen and it may be essayer to cover up any type of deviance. Put it this way if you are the owner and employee it is essayer to cover any mistake done by yourself and no one gets blamed of any wrong doing. Now I’m not making any excuses for the police because, I believe the police should be process in a higher stander and harder sentences.
“Chasing Madoff”, a documentary released in 2010 portrays the way the whistleblower, Harry Markopolos, uncovered Bernie Madoff’s fraud scheme and his ten-year struggle to get the SEC to investigate. The documentary begins with an introduction to Harry Markopolos and his former coworkers Frank Casey and Neil Chelo. The three men work in finance, with investment portfolios. They were aware that in the finance industry there was much talk about an investment company making their customers high returns. Casey came across some investment information from a client of Madoff and gives the information to Markopolos to look over.
Often, employee is in dilemma whether to report the suspicious activities internally in the organization or to external bodies. In most of the cases, internal whistleblowing is better than external whistle blowing as this gives a company to rectify itself and monitor better while external whistleblowing hampers the organization’s reputation and the loyalty of the employer is questioned and the employee’s environment might become unfriendly in the organization. Sherron Watkins in Enron case is an example of internal
(Johnson , 2014 ) In this case , it shows that under normal circumstances the management level of a company or corporation will choose to hide the truth over honesty and integrity .In other way , profitability has override the important of ethics in the corporation .
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW The review of literature of this study broadly focused on whistleblowing. There have been several attempts to define whistleblowing, but certainly there is no generally accepted definition. According to Near and Miceli (1985), which are often referred by researchers, whistleblowing is a process whereby a current or former member of an organization discloses practices or activities believe to be illegal, immoral or illegitimate, to those who may be able to effect change. The practices or activities can be refer to personal misbehavior such as stealing, waste, mismanagement, safety problems, sexual harassment, unfair discrimination and legal violations (Dasgupta & Kesharwani, 2010).
Review of Literature Unethical behavior can tarnish a company’s image and reputation. If a company is unethical, they may have to spend additional money to improve their public image, as well as gain back as many customers as possible. The reason I have chosen to use articles that are quite a few years old and that are not so recent is because I feel that they are very good examples of what I am trying to prove in the terms of ethical behaviour within companies and these specific articles relate well to my chosen topic.