Strategies for Change

Ethics are defined as “a set of moral principles and perceptions about right versus wrong and the resulting philosophy of conduct that is practiced by an individual, group, profession, or culture” (Barker, 2001, p. 159). In the field

Without a question the BOD should have placed a high degree of reliance on Andersen, which at the time was one of the most prestigious worldwide accounting firms. The auditors should have known the kind of accounting taking place in Enron. In my opinion, Andersen knew, at least to some extent, the company’s financial condition. However, Enron was already too deep under water that blowing the whistle so late would have created problems for Andersen as well. According to the case, on 02/05/01, Andersen held internal meeting during which it addressed the company’s accounting from and oversight of the LJM partnership. Andersen never discussed these concerns with the Audit and Compliance Committee. Although the BOD has its faults, it should have been able to rely on Andersen’s work.

Between the years 2000 and 2002 there were over a dozen corporate scandals involving unethical corporate governance practices. The allegations ranged from faulty revenue reporting and falsifying financial records, to the shredding and destruction of financial documents (Patsuris, 2002). Most notably, are the cases involving Enron and Arthur Andersen. The allegations of the Enron scandal went public in October 2001. They included, hiding debt and boosting profits to the tune of more than one billion dollars. They were also accused of bribing foreign governments to win contacts and manipulating both the California and Texas power markets (Patsuris, 2002). Following these allegations, Arthur Andersen was investigated for, allegedly,

Ethics are principles of behaviour that distinguish between right and wrong. Resnik (2011) defines ethics as” a method, procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analysing complex problems and issues” (p.1). People face ethical decisions; however, People working in business frequently face ethical decisions. Business ethics is the evaluation of business activities and behaviour as right or wrong (Society for Business Ethics, 1991).

The audit has been dragged out for over nearly a decade regarding Microsoft’s overseas subsidiaries, and an investigation was being conducted in regards to whether the Redmond company improperly moved software code worth billions of dollars offshore in a way that illegally evaded its U.S. tax bill. Under current law, corporate profits earned overseas and left overseas are not subject to taxation in America. The IRS spent years requesting documents and interviews with Microsoft employees regarding the investigation. In December of 2014, the IRS sued Microsoft in order to force them to turnover documents and information that the IRS claimed the company failed to provide in the investigation. Microsoft’s position in regards to the IRS is that they abused their federal power when they hired an outside law firm to aide them in auditing Microsoft. In 2014, the IRS decided to hire an outside law firm to discuss the case against Microsoft. The problem was that the law firm, Quinn Emanuel, had little experience handling taxpayer data, and in order for the firm to perform the audit, it needed the classified, secret tax documents that was provided by the IRS. However, according to current U.S. law, only employees of the IRS are authorized to view those files. In light of this, Microsoft asked that the information requested by the IRS should be thrown out

Central Issue: Were Martha Stewart, Faneuil, and Peter Bacanovic actions of disclosing clients confidential information and lying to the SEC proven to be ethical?

Ethics is the application of one’s personal beliefs and the impact on how a person makes decisions regarding the relationships involving a company. The most common agents that involve a person’s decisions are owners, employees, customers, clients,

The second step under Trevino and Nelson is to define the ethical issues. In this case, the American manager felt that it was dishonest to underreport earnings on the tax form. The manager also identified the payment of bustarella, which was viewed almost as a corrupt practice. These issues were ethical to the American manager, who assumed that because the process was different and less transparent than the American tax system that it lacked ethical integrity. To the Italians, however, neither practice is considered to be unethical, and should not have been an ethical dilemma for the manager. The manager was caught feeling that there was an ethical dilemma because such practices conflicted with his

The line between a legal and illegal strategy used by KPMG is hard to recognize. KPMG would hide (shelter) money from the IRS to avoid taxable earnings. Since the financial resources of a company are not taxed when they are being invested outside of the United States, KPMG would take advantage and move earnings of a company to foreign banks. Technically, the unseen money was not taxed but should have been because it was not being invested outside of the country. The earning were falsely moved to foreign banks for the pure purpose of avoiding taxes. There was nothing the IRS could do to acknowledge the fact that all these earnings were not in fact investments. The only benefactors of the situation were wealthy companies and, of course, KPMG.

Ethics are the principles and values an individual uses to govern his activities and decisions. In an organization, a code of Ethics is a set of principles that guides the organization in its programs, policies and decisions for the business. The ethical philosophy that is used by an organization to conduct business can affect the reputation, productivity and bottom line of the business (1).

At the time the fraud existed, internal controls were almost non-existent. The management team employed a number of improper accounting practices that did not comply with GAAP. As stated earlier, CEO Dean Buntrock not only allowed internal controls to be bypassed, he encouraged them to be ignored and shaped accounting policy with the sole purpose of making the targeted earnings numbers every year. The auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, LLP, was also shown to have complicity. The partners at Andersen knew that the company’s policies were not compliant so they provided Waste Management with proposed adjusting entries to their books. Waste Management refused to make the adjustments so Andersen had Waste Management sign off on a list of 32 steps the company must do to change its practices. The document legally constituted an agreement among the two parties and clearly shows that Andersen was aware of fraud that Waste Management had covered up in the past. Furthermore, Andersen did not stand up to the company and continued to

Ethics are moral principles or values that govern the conduct of an individual or a group.It is not a burden to bear, but a prudent and effective guide which furthers life and success. Ethics are important not only in business but in academics and society as well because it is an essential part of the foundation on which a civilized society is built.

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.

Lured by the huge profits, KPMG who providing the accounting services for many years has surrendered its violations, lose the principles in the front of professional standards and ethics.

There were many issues in this case but one of the main issues that stood out was the fact that Andersen there was a conflict of interest because Andersen was the auditor and consultant for Enron. There are positive attributes when auditing and consulting at the same time for a client such as building a relationship with the client and promotes business; allows the auditor to become familiar with the clients’ business environment, and reduces the overall cost of the client. However, when a firm audits and consults for their client, the audit/consulting firm works so closely to the client that it makes ethical decisions very difficult to make and the auditors lose objectivity and become partial due to the conflict of interest.