Case Study: DBA Scandal Gentleman Club

The purpose of this memo is to document and evaluate the business risks faced by Toy Central Corporation (TCC), as well as audit risks, accounting issues identified, and management assertions affected.

Lucas, K., & Fyke, J. P. (2014). Euphemisms and ethics: A language-centered analysis of Penn State's Sexual Abuse Scandal. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(4), 551-569. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1777-0

There were many people that were involved in the Tweed Ring scandal, but William “Boss” Tweed and Thomas Nast were the most important. William “Boss” Tweed started his journey to power in the 1940s as a volunteer fire fighter.

On July 12th, 1972, 5 men were arrested at the Watergate Hotel, supposedly trying to bug the Democratic National Committees meetings. It was soon discovered that someone from the White House was a part of this scandal. It was discovered that some of the people trying to bug the meetings were members of President Nixon's re-election party. This gave investigators a reason to suspect Nixon as a part of the scandal and that he has probably done more to make him at the top. Nixon had straight up denied any evidence that was geared toward him being a part of the scandal. An investigation was instituted to try to find evidence of burglary in the White House and at the Hotel. It was discovered that some of the top people in Nixon’s political campaigns

The case behind the Watergate scandal is the supreme court case “United States vs. NIxon.” This is a famous case because president Nixon was the one being accused. It all started in June of 1972 when a handful of men came armed with bugging equipment and cameras into the Watergate hotel. They worked for president Nixon. Their mission was to bug a democratic committee office. Nixon was trying to eavesdrop on his competition in the election. The men were caught and arrested. It wasn’t until 1973 that Nixon was accused of being apart of the scandal. Investigators discovered that NIxon installed a recording device that automatically saved his conversations with the men involved with the scandal. Nixon refused to release any of the tapes. He claimed

In my opinion, there were several factors that lead to the Bell corruption scandal. First and foremost, there seemed to be no checks and balances to control Robert Rizzo and other city officials. Furthermore, they gradually eliminated any controls that were place were, eventually earning absolute control (Goffard, 2010, para. 46-47). This behavior extended to individuals as Rizzo built a city staff that would go along with his corruption (para. 39). However, I do think Rizzo influenced the unethical conduct of city officials. Just as Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (2007) points out in the video Gauging Ethics in an Organization, leaders have to walk the walk when it comes to values. Prince (1995) highlights this principle as well, “the leader can influence the moral conduct of others by demonstrating the desired behavior” (p. 491). Indeed, the leader sets the tone. The city officials experienced a similar situation as the managers of H. J. Heinz during the 1970s. Rizzo created an unhealthy moral environment “where it does not make sense for a person to be honest, fair, loyal or trustworthy…[where]…doing what is morally right is more difficult than usual and sometimes requires great courage” (Ciulla, 1995, p. 493). Second, the local newspaper, The Industrial Post, went out of business leaving a void in government transparency and accountability. Third, the lack of citizen engagement resulting in poor turnout in elections and city council meetings made it easier

In an address to the nation, Nixon swore that he wasn't involved in the burglary of the DNC"s offices, and America believed in him enough to reward him with a reelection by a sweeping majority. Nixon was later found to be corrupt when it was discovered that he paid thousands of dollars in "hush funds" to the burglars to keep them from connecting the case to him. Nixon and his aides were also guilty of arranging the CIA impede the FBI"s investigation. The crimes Nixon committed were considered an "abuse of presidential power", which many believed to be more serious than the break-in itself. Eventually, Nixon and his aides convinced five accomplices to plead guilty to their involvement in the scheme, and two that did not, were ultimately convicted

speechwriter, started using the suffix “gate” to describe scandals. More than 200 scandals have had “gate” attached to them.

Wells Fargo founded in 1852 is known for being a financial services company. Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial financial services through more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATM’s, online, and mobile devices. Wells Fargo is headquartered in San Francisco, California but has a vision of being decentralized from that location. Being decentralized allows each location to act as a headquarters to provide their customers with specific financial services. Wells Fargo employs approximately 268,000 employees to serve 70 million customers.

Q 1: Evaluate Enron profit and cash flow performance during the period 1998 – 2000?

In light of the recent scandals that rose around big multinationals such as Enron and WorldCom, it has become evident that reform in the traditional corporate operations and objectives was to be encompassed in the organisations corporate strategies. Indeed throughout the years, companies main objectives were defined primarily as being economic objectives, Multinationals developed with sight of profit maximisations regardless to the other incentives, Friedman considered that to be the foundation for a well-managed company, it was further considered that the financing of any other sort of social corporate activities rather unnecessary. The expenses were regarded as expenditures for the owners and investors; this was a time where shareholders rights were regarded as conflicting with other constituents namely the employees, creditors, customers or the community in general. However this interpretation is seen as rather inadequate due to the nature of the amalgamated relation between both constituents. Stakeholders in modern corporate doctrine are considered as a core apparatus for the well functioning of a business. It is however often argued that the only way for a corporation to achieve better results and maximise its profits is to include other people in the process, individuals or organisations with direct or indirect interest in the well performance of the company, that is the reason why modern regulations and codes include a number of stakeholders other than the

As the turn of the 21st Century evolved, it appeared as if Adelphia Communications Corporation was on a direct path of success; unbeknownst to their investors and the public, they were in reality on a direct path of destruction instead. Unfortunately, Adelphia is not the first major company in the history of the United States’ business world to lose the trust of the American public, but it is certainly one of the most notable ones to do so. As the events surrounding the Adelphia scandal unfolded in full view of the public eye, a multitude of media outlets were there to broadcast the destruction and distrust to the masses leaving many wondering if the term “business ethics” was actually nothing more than just an oxymoron. Throughout this

Cable provider Adelphia was one of the major accounting scandals of the early 2000s that led to the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. A key provision of the Act was to create a stronger ethical climate in the auditing profession, a consequence of the apparent role that auditors played in some of the scandals. SOX mandated that auditors cannot audit the same companies for which they provide consulting services, as this link was perceived to result in audit teams being pressured to perform lax audits in order to secure more consulting business from the clients. There were other provisions in SOX that increased the regulatory burden on the auditing profession in response to lax auditing practices in scandals like Adelphia (McConnell & Banks, 2003). This paper will address the Adelphia scandal as it relates to the auditors, and the deontological ethics of the situation.

Ethics in the business world can often times become a second priority behind the gaining of profits and success as a company. This is the controversial issue that led to the Enron scandal and ultimately the fall of this company. Enron Corporation was an energy company, and in the peaks of their success, they were the top supplier of natural gas and electricity throughout America. Enron Corporation came about from a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Houston Natural Gas was a gas providing company formed in Houston during the 1920’s. InterNorth was a company formed in Nebraska during the 1930’s and owned one of America’s largest pipeline networks. In 1985, Sam Segnar, the CEO of InterNorth bought out Houston Natural Gas for $2.4 billion. A year later in 1986, Segnar retired and was replaced by Kenneth Lay, who renamed the company and created Enron. Enron was the owner of the second largest pipeline in America that measured over 36,000 miles. The company was also the creator of the “Gas Bank”, which was a new way to trade and market natural gas and served as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. As the company continued to develop, it became more of a trader rather than a producer of gas. This trading extended into coal, steel, water and many other areas. One of Enron’s largest successes was their creation of a website called, “Enron Online” in 1999, which quickly became one of the top trading cites in the world. By the year 2000 Enron as a company was

Ethical Lessons Learned from Corporate Scandals Ethics is about behavior and in the face of dilemma; it is about doing the right thing. Ideally, managerial leaders and their people will act ethically as a result of their internalized virtuous core values. The Enron scandal is the most significant corporate collapse in the United States and it demonstrates the need for significant reforms in accounting and corporate governance in the United States. It is also a call for a close look at the ethical quality of the culture of business generally and of business corporations (Lessons from the Enron Scandal).