Essay on ETH501 Adelphia Case

During my courses, I frequently remind students that most corporate executives, accountants, and auditors are honest and ethical. This case provides a stark and powerful example of one such individual. When I discuss a case such as this in my courses, I try to provide other examples of positive role models among corporate executives. Granted, most of these examples do not involve accounting or auditing matters, but, nevertheless, they help to blunt the impression that students may receive from studying my cases that most corporate executives are “crooks.”

In this case study we were asked to draw upon deontological ethics, and briefly discuss how Adelphia Communications’ executives violated the trust of the company’s shareholders and the trust of that of the larger public. Throughout this paper I will highlight two key ethical problems that were raised by the Adelphia Communications case. Utilizing Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative, “deontological ethics” or so duty rights will be shared. Then I will apply the deontological framework of business ethics to the two key ethical problems that will be identified. Finally Kant’s Categorical Imperative will be applied to those two ethical problems as well.

This $490 million came from the netting manipulation when they offset their expenses with unrelated gains on the sale of assets. The geography manipulation allowed them to move millions of dollars to different sections of the income statement to “make the financials look the way we want to show them” said James Koenig, one of the primary forces behind the scandal. However, none of the fraudulent activities would have gone unknown for so long without the aid of the auditors, Arthur Anderson LLP, involved with Waste Management.

Garcia and Licata took a number of old invoices and issued checks in the invoice amount, subsequently cashing the checks and splitting the amount between themselves. DeLoach soon after joined them and deposited a number of checks, issued by Licata, into various personal accounts throughout Miami. DeLoach used the funds from the fraudulent checks to write checks to Garcia and Licata (Barnett, 2007).

As a publicly-traded corporation, Adelphia, Inc. was one of the largest providers of cable services in the United States. After the company went public, it was learned that the company had materially

When auditing a publicly held company, auditors need to observe principles. The ethical principles of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Code of

To begin with, there were the obvious impacts on Adelphia executives, several businesses and banks and the cable industry itself. As most probably know, several Rigas family members paid heavy prices. John and Timothy Rigas were convicted of bank fraud, conspiracy and securities fraud. (Reference.com, n.d.). John was sentenced to 15 years in prison and Timothy to 20. Though these were noted as being some of the harshest sentences since the fall of Enron, it is important to note that these two men could have received life sentences. (Associated Press,

Ethics are crucial to the accounting profession and the business world, so choosing an ethics system to base your moral decisions on is extremely important. Accountants and all business professionals will be confronted with moral dilemmas on a daily basis. Being strong in your faith and knowing what you believe in will help you to always make the right decision. Based on this reasoning, this essay will explain why deontology is the best ethics system for the accounting profession.

Businesses, investors, creditors rely on accounting ethics. The accounting profession requires honesty, consistency with industry standards, and compliance with laws and regulations. The ethics increase the responsibility and integrity of accounting professionals, and public trust. The ethical requirements influence the management behavior and decision-making. The financial scandal of Enron and Arthur Anderson demonstrates the failure of fundamental ethical framework, such as off-balance sheet transactions, misrepresentation of financial statements, inaccurate disclosure, manipulations with earnings, etc. The confronted accounting profession and concern for ethics in businesses forced regulators to revise the conceptual framework of accounting processes.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Adelphia Communications’ leadership, particularly the Rigas family, violated the trust of the public and its investors through unethical and illegal business practices. First, a synopsis of the Adelphia scandal will be presented. Next, a brief overview of ethics and how they apply to maintaining good business and public trust will be discussed. Following the ethics overview, an outline of deontology and Kant’s Categorical Imperative will be covered. Finally, the business practices and ethical issues with the Adelphia scandal will be analyzed using the deontological framework and Kant’s Categorical Imperative.

This paper relies on secondary data on a past phenomenon. It combines data from journal and other internet sources to bring out aspects of unethical behavior by Adelphia's top executive. The analysis of data takes two ethical frameworks.

The Deontological ethics is marked by steadfastness to universal principles—for example, respect for life, fairness, telling the truth, keeping promises—no matter what the consequences (Halbert, Law & Ethics in the Business Environment. pg. 17).

Ethical issues have greatly transformed in our lives since the great Enron, Xerox and other huge corporations proposed big profits showing earnings of billions of dollars and yet in reality facing bankruptcy. These corporations faced great trouble with the federals and state for manipulating financial statements. But not only corporations can be blamed on this, accounting firms were involved in this as much as the corporations were. With the business stand point, ethics comprises of principles and standards that guide behavior. Investors, traders, customers, and legal system determine whether a specific action is ethical or unethical. Ethical issue is a vast subject, but we will look at the niche

In 1952, John Rigas purchased his own cable company. By the late 1990's, he had turned it into the sixth largest cable company in the United States with 5.6 million customers. The business was always run as a family style business which led to fraudulent acts among family members and upper level executives. The family has been accused of stealing $3.1 billion from Adelphia and is now facing criminal charges. Adelphia was forced to file chapter 11 bankruptcy and as of April 24, 2004, the new board of directors made the decision to break up the company and sell it. The Adelphia scandal is morally wrong because the Rigas family coerced and exploited employees, harmed all stakeholders as well as stockholders, and

The key to the article “Cooking the Books” is to cover the business ethics of an accounting manager ordering one of his accountants to falsifying a company’s accounting ledger. The Generally Accepted Accounting Principle of expense recognition was not followed. The accounting manager was attempting to commit fraud for personal gain, he does this by manipulating the books to show higher revenue in order to meet the volume for management bonus. The accounting manager also created a hostile working environment by threating his accountant’s job security if he didn’t comply with his orders. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act will also be explored to see if there was a violation due to the unethical behavior of the