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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

3M Misrepresents Size of Tape

Posted on March 31, 2008
Thanks to a settlement announced last Thursday, 3M Company will have to change the labels of their tape products and pony up nearly $700,000 for allegedly misrepresenting the physical dimensions of their tape by six percent. 3M was accused of mislabeling its products by Fresno, California’s Division of Measure Standards, which brought suit against

Man Recieves 24 1/2 Year Sentence for Conspiracy to Give U.S. Defense Secrets to China

Posted on March 27, 2008
A whopper of a sentence came in on Monday for the Chinese-born engineer who last May was convicted of conspiring to hand over U.S. military secrets to China. Chi Mak, 67, was given 24 1/2 years for smuggling top secret data, acting as an unregistered foreign agent in the U...

Employee Fined $13,000 for Drunken Hacking

Posted on March 25, 2008
Indiana resident James M. DiBlasio woke up to more than a hangover the morning after a three-day drinking binge. At some point during the 72 hours that he was drunk he managed to hack into the Denver-based server of his employer, Ski.com, and change various data such as flight reservations and contact information...

Surprise! Another Company is Being Investigated for FCPA violations. This Time it?s Shell.

Posted on March 18, 2008
Either investigative techniques used to uncover FCPA violations are improving, more companies are doing it or it’s just getting more attention from the DOJ. But whatever the reason, FCPA cases are a dime a dozen these days. The most recent alleged violator: Shell Oil...

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Starbucks Takes Heat for Tip Sharing Policy

Posted on March 13, 2008
Tipping is an activity so fervently argued and debated in the United States that entire books have been published on tipping etiquette. Those who have worked for tips argue for it, those that haven’t argue against it, and both sides tend to leave the debate unsettled and more angry than when they started...

Stryker Finds New Trouble, This Time for FCPA Violations

Posted on March 11, 2008
Last year Stryker Corp came under fire for illegal payments to U.S. doctors. This year, that might be topped. The company announced in an SEC filing last month that it is being investigated by the Department of Justice for “possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

2007 was a Record Year for EEOC Complaints

Posted on March 06, 2008
In 2007, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received the highest amount of discrimination complaints in five years, the agency reported yesterday. The EEOC noted it received approximately 7,000 more complaints in 2007 than 2006, about a nine percent increase...

?I Want to be a Whistleblower When I Grow up?

Posted on March 04, 2008
Becoming a whistle-blower is now a financially sound career move, thanks to the UK’s Office of Fair Trade (OFT). The British watch dog announced last Friday that it will offer as much as �100,000 for information leading to the discovery and dismantling of illegal corporate cartels...

Bahrain Metal Company Accuses Alcoa of Bribery and Fraud

Posted on February 28, 2008
Alcoa was sued yesterday by Aluminum Bahrain BSC in a U.S. federal court for allegations of overcharging, fraud and bribery. Aluminum Bahrain BSC, better known as Alba, says it was overcharged by Alcoa for alumina (pictured), a key ingredient in creating aluminum...

Flowserve Pays $10.6 Million for Abusing Iraqi Oil-for-Food Program

Posted on February 26, 2008
Will there ever be an end to the Oil-for-Food abuses? Flowserve Corporation announced last Thursday that it will pay nearly $10.6 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice for violating the United Nation’s Iraq Oil-for-Food humanitarian program...

Germans Evade About 30 Billion(Euro) in Taxes Each Year

Posted on February 21, 2008
The large percentage of Germans that regularly avoid taxes isn’t terribly surprising, considering the nation’s top income tax rate is 45 percent and the tax laws are notoriously confusing, according to Bloomberg. Nevertheless, the problem is huge for the country and getting worse...

The Motley Fool talks about Ethisphere and the 100 Most Influential?

Posted on February 20, 2008
A recent article in The Motley Fool discussed Ethisphere’s 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics 2007. The article touts Ethisphere’s list as an easy way to find socially responsible businesses. And this is true. Ethisphere’s rankings continue to grow in popularity and are becoming a measure of success for leaders who believe that ethics [...

H&M Stops Selling Australian Wool

Posted on February 19, 2008
H&M is the second largest retailer in Europe and has stores around the world, and now it no longer accepts wool from Australia. This came about after the Australian wool industry showed signs of hesitation on its plan to stop mulesing sheep by 2010...

Labor Department Proposes Changes to FMLA Regulations

Posted on February 15, 2008
On February 11th, the United States Department of Labor announced its proposed changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) - changes that have been in the works for quite some time. For those unfamiliar with the act, it was brought about in 1993 and permits workers to take unpaid leave for serious [...

Morrison Supermarket Fights Cartel Allegations

Posted on February 13, 2008
Wm Morrison, the UK supermarket chain, is suing the UK’s Office of Fair Trade (OFT) for libel after the OFT claimed Morrison was allegedly part of a 2002 milk cartel, and is demanding a judicial review of how the OFT is handling the case. Several food companies have come under investigation recently on charges [...

68 Million Reasons Why You Want to Report Bad Behavior

Posted on February 08, 2008
Seven years ago H. Dean Steinke, a rising employee and former district sales manager for Merck, put his career on hold by blowing the whistle on his former employee’s unethical marketing practices. Today, his conscious finally paid off when Merck agreed to pay $671 million to settle accusations of overcharging government programs such as [...

Ex-Wellpoint CFO David Colby?s Firing for ?Non-Business Nature? Clarified

Posted on February 06, 2008
One day you’re labeled the “best health-insurance chief financial officer for each of the past four years” by Institutional Investor, the next you’re frantically texting “ABORT!!” to one of your many girlfriends/fiancees, hoping that your double life isn’t discovered...

Alpha Mining Systems Wins $19.7 Million from Trade Secret Theft

Posted on February 04, 2008
A Florida man has been found guilty of dishing out company trade secrets from his former employer, Alpha Mining Systems, to competitors. Alpha, a global manufacturer of industrial mining tires, won a $19.7 million judgment against Sam Vance, the company’s former sales and marketing manager...

Mattel is Recovering from Toy Recall

Posted on February 01, 2008
Remember all those Mattel toy recalls last year? Apparently it didn’t cripple the company as much as some experts predicted. The Motley Fool posted an interesting article yesterday on the tenuous recovery of the company. Mattel’s fourth-quarter earnings are up 15% over last year, and the stock price - still drastically

Lahmeyer International Loses World Bank Support because of Connection with Lesotho Highlands Water Project

Posted on January 31, 2008
The World Bank announced it won’t be giving any more money to Lahmeyer International after the company was found guilty of bribing officials responsible for lending contracts for the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, a multi-billion dollar operation...

Fly the [Environmentally] Friendly Skies

Posted on January 29, 2008
Air France today announced a pledge to spend $3 billion annually (until 2020) to cut carbon emissions and noise levels for its aircraft. The company is also hoping to cut fuel consumption by 15 to 20 percent within five years. You can see a bunch of other numbers over

BASF and Bayer Investigate Alleged Price Fixing Charges

Posted on January 23, 2008
It seems the chemical and pharmaceutical industries haven’t exactly been the most ethically-minded these days. Both BASF SE and Bayer AG announced they will begin an internal probe into allegations by the World Bank that the two companies engaged in a price fixing scheme for an anti-mosquito pesticide sold in India...

Ocean Plundering Meets the 21st Century

Posted on January 23, 2008
For several years, Ernesto Tapanes was a simple, ordinary “oceanography survey consultant,” doing contracting work for the treasure-hunting firm Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. One spring day in 2007, however, his life abruptly changed when he discovered an anomaly off the coast of Gibraltar...

Chevron Donates $30 Million to U.N. Backed Global Fund

Posted on January 22, 2008
Chevron announced yesterday it will be giving its largest single donation in company history to the United Nations backed Global Fund, a program that helps to fight AIDS and other infectious diseases throughout the world. This also marks the largest single donation to the Fund by a company, which makes Chevron the Global Fund’s [...

Siemens Could be Fined up to 4 Billion Euros by U.S. SEC

Posted on January 21, 2008
The European engineering firm Siemens just learned that it might be fined as much as ?4 billion (close to $6 billion) by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission as the result of a large bribery investigation that began in 2006. The number is about three times the amount of bribes that were uncovered [...

Norway Really Wants to Become Carbon Neutral

Posted on January 18, 2008
Norway may have been beaten to the punch by Vatican City, but in a long-standing tradition of doing things better than the rest of us, the “Land of the Midnight Sun” clearly hasn’t given up its goal of becoming carbon neutral before everyone else...

Major Pharmaceutical Companies Raided by EU Officials

Posted on January 17, 2008
Several major pharmaceutical companies were raided by European authorities yesterday as part of an investigation into whether or not they colluded to keep prices of their drugs high after their patents had expired. The UK?s Financial Times reports that Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis were some of the companies unexpectedly visited by the EU [...

Chocolate Companies Come Under Scrutiny for Price Fixing

Posted on January 16, 2008
Choco-giants Hershey, Nestle, Cadbury and Mars have come under scrutiny from the U.S. and Canada over allegations of price fixing. The companies have already handed over documents to the Canadian authorities, and Bloomberg reported back in December ‘07 that U...

Green Washing at its Best

Posted on January 14, 2008
Stop the presses! Al Gore, the Sierra Club, and environmentalists everywhere are going to need to find a new hobby because global warming has just been stopped. Limousine Eighteen, the international ?ground transportation company,? has purchased one hybrid SUV for their fleet of ground vehicles...

Drug-Maker Amgen is Accused of Shady Sales Dealings

Posted on January 14, 2008
Two former sales representatives for Amgen have brought suit against the company, alleging it used questionable and illegal sales tactics to help push sales of its psoriasis-treating drug, Enbrel. The suit alleges that Amgen pressured its sales team to 1) obtain physician’s records for patients suffering from psoriasis and 2) encourage insurance companies to reimburse [...

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