Whistleblowing And Sarbanes Oxley Due

Company X is committed to providing education for each employee to report unethical behavior and resolve conflicts without fear of retaliation. One such example would be the need to report employee theft. Employee theft is not only unethical but could also be criminal in nature. Regardless of employee status (entry level or upper management), each employee should feel it their responsibility to report any unethical behavior they observe. Employee theft can range from theft of money, time, office supplies or merchandise to providing proprietary information to unauthorized entities. These activities can result in a negative public image of Company X and should be reported as quickly as possible. Prior to reporting such offenses, each employee should ensure the accuracy of the evidence they will be reporting. There are various methods to report such abuses including but not limited to an anonymous toll free hot line number, verbal or electronic reporting to the local Human Resources office and the open door policy which encourages employees to approach members of management without the fear of

In addition, whistleblowers should be portrayed as being good in order for society to begin seeing them in a positive way. Furthermore, the government should make this type of crimes a public matter. Allowing the public to be able to see all charges and outcome regarding these cases could bring out other wrongdoings in other organizations. The government should also impose greater punishment such as jail time for these types of crimes rather than imposing fines that they are able to

Throughout history and in our own time, legitimate accounting methods have been utilized to fraudulently engage in manipulating activities that results in illicit gains to the perpetrators and losses to individuals and financial institutions.

In the past, many corporate executive have committed various forms scandals in their organizations. Such fraudulent arts are unethical and immoral behavior. This led the US government to form legislation in order to control fraudulent activities; mostly performed by senior officers in the organization. In view of this, this paper will address the following: historical summary on SOX enactment, the key ethical components of SOX, social responsibility implications regarding mandatory publication of corporate ethics, whether the criticisms of SOX implication presents an unfair burden on smaller organizations and suggestions on the improvement of SOX legislation.

The Sarbanes-Oxley is a U.S. federal law that has generated much controversy, and involved the response to the financial scandals of some large corporations such as Enron, Tyco International, WorldCom and Peregrine Systems. These scandals brought down the public confidence in auditing and accounting firms. The law is named after Senator Paul Sarbanes Democratic Party and GOP Congressman Michael G. Oxley. It was passed by large majorities in both Congress and the Senate and covers and sets new performance standards for boards of directors and managers of companies and accounting mechanisms of all publicly traded companies in America. It also introduces criminal liability for the board of directors and a requirement by

For many whistleblowers, fear of persecution and retaliation has prevented them from speaking out against improper behaviors at their institutions. Because of the dangers that whistleblowers are exposed to, many companies have become proactive in promoting and protecting whistleblowing. As a case and point, we need to look no further than the banking giant, Barclays.

Review “Just pucker and blow: An analysis of corporate whistleblowers” in Chapter 2. Please respond to the following:

According to Harvard Law School’s article, approximately two-thirds of companies in the U.S. are affected by fraud. However, whistleblower Hotline can be as defense against management overrides. The article noted that whistleblower could be more effective if it become as apart of the corporate compliance programs and a reward of any monetary sanctions collected to motivate the employees Also, the article mention that the employees

The Dodd- Frank law on whistle-blowing bounty program is an upgrade from the Sarbanes- Oxley. The Sarbanes – Oxley whistle -blower program protected employees from getting retaliated upon by their employers when they report misconduct within the company they are employed. Dodd- Frank law took is a step further, an employee who reports financial misconduct are entitled to receive 10 percent to 30 percent of the fines and settlements if the conviction is upheld and the penalties exceed $1 million dollars (Ferrell, 112, 2013). The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law by President Obama in 2010 (Ferrell, pg. 110, 2013). The focal mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is to make markets for

The various forms of retribution that whistle-blowers endure at the hands of employers both financially and psychologically for attempting to correct mismanagement, fraud, and dishonesty are often too much for the whistle-blower to bear. Careers are in jeopardy because individuals with strong ethics decide to pursue law suits against their employers. One example is where the US Forest Service employees found their careers ruined by either demotions or loss of jobs when caught speaking out in favor of the environment or sound science, or when

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passes in 2002 in response to a handful of large corporate scandals that occurred between the years 2000 to 2002, resulting in the losses of billions of dollars by investors. Enron, Worldcom and Tyco are probably the most well known companies that were involved in these scandals, but there were a number of other companies guilty of such things as well. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed as a way to crackdown on corporations by setting new and improved standards that all United States’ public companies and accounting firms were and are required to abide by. It also works to hold top level executives accountable for the company, and if fraudulent behaviors are discovered then the executives could find themselves in hot water. The punishments for such fraudulence could be as serious as 20 years jail time. (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2014). The primary motivation for the act was to prevent future scandals from happening, or at least, make it much more difficult for them to happen. The act was also passed largely to protect the people—the shareholders—from corporations, their executives, and their boards of directors. Critics tend to argue that the act is to complicated, and costs to much to abide by, leading to the United States losing its “competitive edge” in the global marketplace (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2014). The Sarbanes-Oxley act, like most things, has its pros and cons. It is costly; studies have shown that this act has cost companies millions of

Jackson and Raftos (1997) referred to whistle blowing as an avenue of last resort. Employees find themselves in these situations when the authorities at their organisations have failed to take actions on reported issues affecting that organisation. Wimot (2000) likened whistleblowing to a spectrum. At one end of this spectrum whistleblowing would only cause minimal pain and scars on the stakeholders and organisation while on the other end is the worst scenario where the whistleblowing effects are turbulent and often experienced to be negative to all those involved (ibid).

The development of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was a result of public company scandals. The Enron and Worldcom scandals, for example, helped investor confidence in entities traded on the public markets weaken during 2001 and 2002. Congress was quick to respond to the political crisis and "enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was signed into law by President Bush on July 30" (Edward Jones, 1), to restore investor confidence. In reference to SOX, penalties would be issued to non-ethical or non-law-abiding public companies and their executives, directors, auditors, attorneys, and securities analysts (1). SOX significantly transformed the procedures in which public companies handle internal

Whistleblowers perform in many careers and are found at all levels of an organization: scientists and secretaries, lawyers and paralegals, managers and staff, security personnel and computer specialists, etc. They are as varied in age, ethnic background, education, profession, sex, and income as the population at large.

2. What measures can and should be taken to make it easier for corporate employees to ‘‘blow the whistle’’ on a fraudulent scheme they uncovered within the firm?