Ethisphere Blog - Good. Smart. Business. Profit. : Ethics

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Ethics Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Ethics

Ethisphere Blog - Good. Smart. Business. Profit.

The Ethisphere Blog offers an insightful and comedic look at the news and commentary from the world of ethics and compliance.

Post Frequency: 1.5/day

Last Entry: February 25, 2011 at 14:39:43

Anonymous Hacker Blackmails Virginia Department of Health

Posted on May 14, 2009
Employees of the Virginia Department of Health Professions received an unwelcome surprise in February, when an anonymous hacker changed the organization?s homepage to a virtual ransom note. According to the online note, the hacker claimed to have stolen 8...

DOE Employee Justifies Performance Award by Self Evaluating Performance

Posted on May 14, 2009
A former Department of Energy employee pleaded guilty to one count of false statements, after the Department of Justice accused him of writing his own annual review. He did so, according to news reports, in order to justify an annual performance award that he also managed to give himself...

Adidas, Michelin and Total Investigated for Tax Fraud

Posted on May 14, 2009
In April, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered investigations into Liechtenstein bank accounts used by Michelin, Total and Adidas as tax havens. The move, intended to coincide with the recent G20 agreement to curb international tax shelters, began four months ago and was focused on accounts held by subsidiaries of the large companies...

?Say-on-Pay? Gaining Momentum amid Financial Crisis

Posted on April 23, 2009
Dan Amos, CEO of Aflac, is already famous for implementing say-on-pay measures within his company (Read his thoughts on say-on-pay in the Quarter 4 issue of Ethisphere Magazine). Other companies now seem to be warming up to the idea as well. Both Intel and Hewlett-Packard have acknowledged that they would be willing to take up [...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, Agrees to Eliminate Multi-Million Dollar Bonus

Posted on April 23, 2009
Many companies have come under scrutiny for their head-scratching behavior amidst the financial downturn, specifically those that lay-off thousands of employees while their leadership accepts ever increasing, multi-million dollar bonuses. At the same time, however, there are many companies that haven?t made as dramatic of headlines for the way their leadership has voluntarily given up [...

Cadbury to Save Environment by Reducing Cow Burps

Posted on April 23, 2009
If you hadn?t heard by now, around 20 percent of our planet?s greenhouse-gas emissions come from cow ?emissions.? Cadbury has decided to tackle this challenge head on and encourage cows to burp less in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the company?s chocolate products...

Ex-CIA Official Sentenced to Three Years Prison For Improperly Awarding Contract

Posted on April 23, 2009
Kyle Foggo, who previously held the number 3 spot at the CIA from 2004 to 2006 was sentenced to three years after pleading guilty to one count of fraud. According to the New York Times, Foggo is the highest ranking CIA official to ever be convicted of a crime...

Verdict is doubled due to HR Director?s Lack of FMLA Knowledge

Posted on February 25, 2009
A federal judge doubled the verdict awarded to an employee who was found to have been fired in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act. The employee, Melissa Brown, said that she was fired because she told her employers at Nutrition Management that she was pregnant...

Lost Laptop Costs Veterans Affairs Department $20 Million

Posted on January 28, 2009
The Veterans Affairs Department agreed to a $20 million settlement yesterday, after concerns of identity theft arose from a 2006 case of a lost laptop and external hard drive. A VA analyst admitted to losing the laptop, which contained the names, birth dates and social security numbers of over 26 million veterans and active [...

Taco Bell Loses Appeal, Still Has To Pay $42 Million For Chihuahua Concept

Posted on January 26, 2009
A federal appellate court ruled today that Taco Bell, and not its ad agency TBWA, is responsible for the $42 million payment to the original creators of the now famous Taco Bell Chihuahua mascot. The latest in a decade-old lawsuit, today’s ruling upheld the decision of a lower court that had to decide whether [...

Bernie Who? Municipal Bond Antitrust Schemes Could Put Madoff Fraud To Shame

Posted on January 21, 2009
Earlier this month, Governor Bill Richardson decided to withdraw his nomination for commerce secretary in order to, in his explanation, avoid making a spectacle out of the confirmation process. The unnecessary distraction, he feared, would come about from possible improper payments to his Political Action Committees from companies that had received bond payments from [...

Study: Corruption Goes Up as Economy Goes Down

Posted on January 16, 2009
It?s well known that during times of financial hardship, crime goes up. So no one should be surprised that corporate crime goes up during a recession. Today?s financial crisis allows the opportunity for many research based organizations to publish studies on just that...

Former Blackstone Exec Accused of Insider Trading

Posted on January 15, 2009
“I am both saddened and outraged,” Steve Schwarzman wrote in a message to Blackstone employees on Tuesday. “The SEC has brought a civil complaint today against Ramesh Chakrapani in our Corporate Advisory Services Group.” Schwarzman, CEO of asset management firm Blackstone Group, was referring to charges that the SEC brought against 33-year-old Managing Director Ramesh [...

Whole Foods Reaches Out to Competitors to Help Dispute Anti-Trust Charges

Posted on January 14, 2009
Team of Rivals? Not Quite. In response to a series of 2007 FTC antitrust suits, Whole Foods has asked 96 of its U.S.-based competitors to hand over sensitive company data. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, believes the information will help fight the 29 separate lawsuits it is facing ? one for each [...

Private Equity Firms Don?t Live Up to Voluntary Code for Transparency

Posted on January 13, 2009
In 2007 a Code of Conduct for transparency and disclosure was drawn up for the private equity industry in the United Kingdom. It was created, and still remains, as a voluntary code that firms can agree to sign onto at their leisure. Unfortunately, even after signing up voluntarily, many firms didn?t fully comply [...

DOJ Goes After Foreign Controlled Money for FCPA Violations

Posted on January 12, 2009
The Department of Justice announced last week that it filed a forfeiture action against approximately $3 million in accounts held in Singapore. The DOJ alleges that this money was used to pay off officials in Bangladesh. The kicker is that some of this money was allegedly paid from a U...

Could The SEC Have Uncovered Madoff?s Scheme Eight Years Ago?

Posted on December 18, 2008
A great piece in the Wall Street Journal today discusses the dedicated efforts of a Mr. Harry Markopolos in trying to alert the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme as early as 2000. In 2000 Markopolis was a former employee of a rival firm to Madoff’s, and later in 2004 [...

Could The SEC Have Uncovered Madoff?s Scheme Eight Years Ago?

New Disclosure Rules Announced Between Government Contractors and Federal Agencies

Posted on December 15, 2008
The following information comes courtesy of David Laufman at Kelley Drye: On Friday, a new mandatory disclosure rule took effect that dramatically alters the legal dynamic between government contractors and federal agencies. Specifically, an amendment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (?FAR?) became operational that henceforth requires all contractors to ?timely? disclose certain violations of law [...

J&J Paid at Least $68.7 Million In Ortho Evra Related Settlements

Posted on October 22, 2008
Regular Ethisphere readers are aware of a number of issues that have affected Johnson & Johnson in the past, namely the (still ongoing) problems with their Ortho Evra birth control patch. Along those lines, Bloomberg published an interesting story claiming that Johnson & Johnson has paid - at a minimum - $68...

Is The Battle Between WPP And Its Former Director Finally Over?

Posted on October 16, 2008
An amusing story in the Times Online this week reports that uber-advertising company WPP and its former Italian director, Marco Benatti, have privately settled an ongoing dispute involving libel, wrongful termination and interoffice romance. WPP alleged that Benatti secretly took for his personal gain the majority of the proceeds from a �17 million takeover [...

Two Vietnamese Reporters Will Be Tried For Writing About Corruption

Posted on October 13, 2008
Two journalists who were arrested last May after reporting on corruption within the Vietnamese government are set to go on trial next week. The two reporters, Nguyen Van Hai and Nguyen Viet Chien, are charged with “abusing freedom and democracy,” even after their reports led to the conviction of nine people and forced the [...

European Commission Fines ?Paraffin Mafia? ?676 Million

Posted on October 03, 2008
The European Commission announced on Wednesday that it had levied the fourth largest fine against a cartel in the history of the EU. This time, it came out to ?676 million and went against the wax industry. This means the wax industry is just below the elevator industry, the vitamin industry and the [...

Cephalon Fined $425 Million For Illegally Promoting Its Drugs Like ?Lollipops?

Posted on September 30, 2008
Cephalon agreed to pay $425 million on Monday in order to settle criminal and civil charges filed against the company for the way it marketed three of its drugs - Actiq (a painkiller), Gabitril (an epilepsy drug) and Provigil (a sleeping drug), according to a story by Reuters, and published by The Guardian...

French Alcatel Executive Bribes Costa Rican Government, Then Nailed For FCPA Violations In U.S.

Posted on September 24, 2008
Just in case you forgot that the U.S. government applies the FCPA to foreign companies that operate within the United States, here is a reminder. Christian Sapsizian, a French citizen and former executive of Alcatel, was sentenced to three years in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $261,500 after [...

Two NASCAR Officials Fired Over Racial Discrimination and Sexual Harassment

Posted on September 22, 2008
Two NASCAR officials have been fired as part of an ongoing, $225 million, racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit. The two employees, Tom Knox and Bud Moore, are accused by Mauricia Grant of “exposing themselves to her, and making graphic and lewd jokes,” according to the Associated Press...

With A Compliance Officer Like That, Who Needs Shady Employees?

Posted on September 17, 2008
The ongoing Alstom bribery probe has already expanded to at least four continents and possibly uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes, but insult was added to injury when Swiss prosecutors announced that Alstom’s former compliance officer was arrested for operating a slush fund at the heart of the case, according to a story [...

DOJ: Corporations Can Again Provide Legal Assistance to Employees Without Fear

Posted on August 28, 2008
The U.S. Department of Justice announced new Departmental guidelines today that repeal restrictions to attorney-client privilege between corporations and their employees embroiled in federal cases. These new guidelines will prohibit the DOJ from punishing companies for providing their employees legal assistance, such as paying lawyers’ fees or protecting privileged information between employees and corporate [...

Price Fixing Mixed Into Egyptian Cement Industry

Posted on August 26, 2008
Twenty executives from the Egyptian cement industry were fined $1.87 million each after being found guilty of price fixing. Each of their respective companies will be fined an additional $1.87 million. According to the Daily News Egypt, this trial was the first of its kind, as the country’s anti-monopoly laws went into effect [...

China Displaces UK In ?Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices?

Posted on August 19, 2008
China knocked the United Kingdom out of the top five countries considered most attractive for investment in renewable energy, according to a quarterly report released by Ernst & Young. In fact, the two countries simply switched places–the UK is now listed at six, just behind Spain (tied for fourth with China)...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

New Baptist Covenant Blog
Last week, I pointed to the New Baptist Convenant website, now onl...

The Mexico Trucker Blog
I've written before about the perceived problems with relaxed rest...

Zyprexa on Trial in Alaska: Lilly Accused of Putting Profit Before Patients
Anchorage, AK: Spectators in a courtroom in Anchorage are getting ...